


1961

by mount_busby



Category: Call the Midwife
Genre: Canon Compliant, Canon-ish, F/F, Series 5, gays and nuns and feelings, not smut not fluff, okay sometimes its fluff
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-28
Updated: 2017-12-26
Packaged: 2018-10-11 21:53:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 21
Words: 48,167
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10475238
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mount_busby/pseuds/mount_busby
Summary: An almost canon fill-the-blanks tale of broken hearts, broken beds, curlers, secrets, nylons and... nuns? (In line with season 5)





	1. Trixie Franklin and the Finishing School for Midwives

**Author's Note:**

> Set approximately a week after ‘A Short Distance’ – I have taken some artistic licence with the storylines here. Essentially, this is after Delia’s accident as I am not writing that shit in, however Phyllis knows about the pupcake. Let's call it 1961 with some liberties taken! Not totally sure where I will take this after the first few chapters, I’m happy enough just generate a bit of escapism and character development.

The single beds of Nonnatus house were much like their midwife occupants: reliable, well put together, but generally not used to receiving the arrival of more than one person at a time. (Occasionally two, respectively allowing for twins or the very occasional gentleman caller.) They certainly weren’t used to the weight of three nurses, a small collection of cocktails and at least three hatboxes. Nurse Mount’s bed creaked ominously under the strain. Nurse Franklin’s bed, by comparison, was empty except for Miss Franklin herself who was perched on the edge of the covers with a drink in one hand and a cigarette in the other. Slim legs crossed at the ankles and tucked slightly beneath the bed, and with a small netted fascinator arranged on top of her blonde curls, she exuded more than her usual air of grace and sophistication. And well she might, for tonight this was not simply a nurse’s bedroom in Poplar, this was Casa Trixie, finishing school for Midwives. And Delia. 

‘Come on ladies’, she enunciated, chivvying her students into position ‘Side saddle, knees together and cross at the ankles.’ She gestured to hips, knee and ankle in much the way that an air hostess might indicate the exits of an aeroplane. Her three charges shuffled awkwardly to mirror her pose, rather hoping for an exit themselves.

‘We’re a little bit pushed for space here Trixie’ Barbara Gilbert protested as she tried to arrange herself accordingly. One of the hatboxes was digging into her back and she was struggling to find an elegant way of holding her glass of Tizer without spilling it. ‘Patsy is taking up most of the room with her great long legs, and poor Delia is halfway up the pillows!’

Patsy pulled a mock affronted face and winked at Barbara, before shuffling obediently to the left. Crossing her offending legs to give Barbara more room also allowed her make warm contact with Delia’s knee. Patsy resisted the urge to glance across at her, lest her own blush should give them away. It was a sweet torture to have Delia living here, she wanted so much to be alone with her, to take her hand and hold her. But admittedly, it was nice to see her mix with Patsy's friends, and it certainly gave them more opportunity to see each other without arousing any suspicion. Trixie’s evaluations pulled her out of her own thoughts and back into the room.

‘Well it’s a start I suppose,’ Trixie sighed, ‘Delia and Barbara you look about as comfortable as if I had asked you to arrange yourselves on a bed of a nails. But Patsy, you do look very elegant. Top marks.’ Patsy inclined her head graciously at the compliment and the blonde winked at her over her cigarette.

‘Well that’s not very fair, it’s easier for Patsy.’ Delia objected. Trixie raised a questioning eyebrow and Delia felt Patsy’s gaze on her too. She resisted explaining the simple truth that Patsy was rather more gorgeous and elegant than the rest of them to start with, but instead settled for ‘She’s had a head start, she went to posh totty boarding school.’ 

Trixie and Barbara burst out laughing and Delia smugly sipped her drink, daring a glance at Patsy whose lips were pursed in restrained amusement. A crackling from the record player announced that it had reached the end of its tracks, and Trixie rose to see to it, drink in hand, whilst Patsy moved to the window to light a cigarette. Thumbing through the small stack of records, most of which were in sleeves battered from years of use, Trixie felt the small tug of de ja vu. She thought back to playing these records when they were still new, in this very room just a few years ago. Cynthia would perch nervously on the end of Jenny’s bed while the three of them cast judgement on Trixie’s newest musical purchases. Pulling herself back to the present, Trixie closed lid of the box of records with a snap and instead lifted the arm back to the start of the current vinyl. Soon the dulcet tones of Paul Anka were playing again, and the occupants of the room fell quiet to listen. _‘Put your head on my shoulder…’_ Trixie pulled a silken scarf from her wardrobe and, drawing it across her bare shoulders, began to waltz with it. Barbara and Delia chuckled from where they were now spread out on Patsy’s bed. Patsy blew a lazy smoke ring toward the lampshade, and the action sparked an idea in Trixie. 

‘Oh Patsy, yes! What could be more perfect than a lady who knows how to handle a cigarette.’ She dropped the ends of the scarf and pulled from a drawer a small square box of pastel pink. ‘But only if they’re French.’ She added with a coy smile.

‘I’d rather they were French chocolates’ Said Delia, pulling a face when the box was offered to her. Inside were two rows of neatly laid out cigarettes, in various pastel shades. She drew a pale purple one and examined it while Trixie crossed to offer one to Patsy. The alcohol had thickened her welsh accent as she mused, ‘It looks more like a parma violet.’ 

Patsy laughed ‘It won’t taste like one I’m afraid, Deels. French or not, I think I’ll stick to my Lucky Strikes, thanks Trixie.’ 

Delia passed her cigarette to Barbara before it was even lit, and Trixie returned to her perch on the bed to instruct them on how a lady should smoke. Patsy was soon crying with laughter at the sight of Delia huffing away on a lipstick and Barbara sputtering hopelessly while trying very hard to maintain the pose Trixie had deemed appropriate. Their laughter nearly drowned out a quiet knock on the door. 

‘Come in!’ Trixie called brightly, hoping they hadn’t disturbed a nun. The doorknob rattled and a moment later Phyllis Crane’s head, complete with curlers and a fitted hair net, appeared around the door.

‘Goodness me,’ Nurse Crane said, taking in the room ‘I was only calling in to say goodnight to Barbara, but all this smoke and perfume, I feel like I’ve stepped into a Parisian boudoir.’

‘The cigarettes are French.’ Barbara parroted, a little heady from the smoke. Phyllis frowned down at her. 

‘Do come in Phyllis, can we get you a drink?’ Trixie offered, gesturing to the cabinet she had pulled the cigarettes from, on top of which was a cocktail shaker, two crystal cut tumblers and a small collection of bottles. 

‘No thank you.’ Phyllis said curtly, not moving from the door. ‘I only imbibe on special occasions.’ 

‘I’ve made a virgin cocktail this evening, it is Barbara after all.’ Said Trixie with a wink, crossing to the cabinet, carefully omitting her own teetotal status. ‘It’s only the rebels who are adding their own scotch.’ Delia and Patsy grinned guiltily. 

Nurse Crane hesitated in the doorway until Barbara piped up, ‘Oh do stay Phyllis, you’ll be saving us from Trixie’s schooling.’ Phyllis’s shoulders softened and Barbara and Delia shuffled to make a space for her on the bed. ‘Trixie is teaching us how to be elegant ladies, so we can attract the right sort of gentleman.’ 

‘We’re not doing very well.’ Delia added, exchanging a silent smile with the redhead across the room, unnoticed by everyone but Phyllis (naturally).

‘I see,’ said Nurse Crane uncertainly, taking an uncomfortable perch on the wooden footboard of the bed, rather than the space made for her, and accepting a curiously pink drink from Miss Franklin. ‘Elegance. Well I certainly wouldn’t know much about that.’

‘Nonsense!’ Trixie protested ‘You’re a woman of poise Nurse Crane, what wisdom can you share with us about being a-’ she paused dramatically to draw the scarf across her face so that only her heavily mascara'd eyes were visible – ‘sophisticated sort of lady?’

Patsy rolled her eyes from her position at the window. ‘She’s a taskmaster, Nurse Crane.’

'I'm only trying to civilise you all, Patience Mount.' Trixie scolded with a wink.

‘I’m sure. Well what elegant knowledge have you gained so far?’ Phyllis asked, nervously re-arranging her dressing grown, aware of her somewhat drab appearance compared to rest of the room. She wished she hadn’t put her curlers in before calling for Barbara. ‘Perhaps you can learn me some…’ 

Trixie settled herself carefully on the edge of her bed once more, ready to recap her lessons, whilst Patsy stubbed out her cigarette and came to rejoin the others on her own bed. There wasn’t quite enough room to sit four shoulder to shoulder, so Patsy lay propped up on the pillows behind her guests, her 'great long legs' stretched out the length of the bed, which creaked a little in protest.

‘So far at Casa Trixie we have learnt how to arrange ourselves gracefully when seated, which we’ve obviously already forgotten.’ Trixie shot at dark look at Patsy, sprawled as she was. ‘We _attempted_ to learn the ladylike way to handle a cigarette-’

‘Evidently.’ Chimed Phyllis, wafting a hand at the smokey air.

‘And before that we learnt the power of a well-executed eyelash flutter.’ Trixie finished. Almost on cue, Patsy, Delia and Barbara all turned and fluttered carefully winged eyes at Nurse Crane, who blushed slightly at the attention. Phyllis drew herself up, looked down her nose, and attempted to return the gesture. It looked less like an alluring flutter and more like an intermittent succession of slightly squinty blinks. The young women erupted with rolling laughter, and Phyllis beamed with slightly embarrassed pride.

‘Oh Phyllis you are a card!’ said Barbara, wiping tears from her eyes as the laughter eventually subsided. ‘I think I at least-'

‘Shh!’ Patsy clapped a hand to Barbara’s shoulder, ‘What was that noise?’ 

The five of them froze for several long seconds, until Delia whispered ‘...Nuns?’

With that the bed finally gave in, and with a resounding crack one side splintered in two, taking several of the slats with it, tipping Barbara onto the floor at Trixie’s feet and sending the other three tumbling into the centre of the now lopsidedly sunken bed. There was a stunned silence in which Patsy, now at a bizarre angle with her legs in the air, took in the sight of Nurse Crane and Delia practically heaped in her lap, both covered in spilt drink. Barbara’s head slowly rose over the side of the bed like someone peering over the parapet of a trench. Trixie remained perfectly untouched, drink still in hand, lips pinched together in barely contained laughter.

‘Oh, lord.’ Breathed Patsy. ‘We’ve really done it now.’

* * *

An hour later and a very awkward visit to Sister Julienne saw that Patsy was rehomed in Sister Mary Cynthia’s room for the night, until Fred could see to her bedframe on Monday. Delia had made her escape back to her box room long before then, and after helping to mop up the last of the spilt drinks Barbara and Phyllis had retired to their own bedroom. Trixie Franklin was for the first time in a long while, completely alone. 

Pouring the last of the pink cocktail mix into her glass, she eyed Patsy’s scotch before turning with a sigh to lean against the cabinet, her eyes drawn to the very broken bed. It was mostly bare now, her roommate having taken the covers through to her temporary digs across the hall. Trixie thought of how long all these sturdy wooden beds had been in Nonnatus house, how many nurses and nuns must have passed through them, and felt a pang of guilt for being the generation to break it. She was almost a veteran now, she mused, Patsy being the second nurse she had shared this room with. Several of Jenny’s neatly clipped pictures of Cliff Richard were still glued to the wall above her old bed. Now joined by several more recent pictures of Bridgette Bardot, ‘Something to aspire to,’ Patsy had said. 

‘Who’s your bedroom wall dreamboat, Cynthia?’ Jenny had asked once, as they lounged in this very room just a few summers ago. ‘Cynthia? Our little church mouse, surely not! Though I do have a St Christopher’s medal somewhere with a very flattering likeness,’ Trixie had teased. Trixie realised with a pang that Cynthia’s old room was just on the opposite side of this wall of paper-pasted hearthrobs. She had once been able to knock on the wall late at night to see if her timid friend was still awake, but that had ended when Cynthia had left to join the religious order. Jenny had moved on too now, and it was just Trixie left to remember how they had laughed together. Cynthia had returned to this place in which they had forged their friendship, but really she had moved on too, beyond the starched veil of becoming Sister Mary Cynthia, where Trixie could not reach her.

Trixie felt emotion thicken in her throat and threw back the last of her drink, placing the glass with an unsteady clatter back on the tray. ‘Come on Beatrix,’ Trixie scolded, kicking off her shoes ‘that wasn’t very elegant.’


	2. Patsy Mount and the Goddamn Dandelions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Based heavily around 5.3 in which Jeanette Su, granddaughter of the large Mahoney family, contracts suspected typhoid, the disease to which Patsy lost her mother and sister. Some liberties taken. Also, it’s a long one, I don’t know what happened there so get yourself a cup of tea and maybe a biscuit first, sorry!

Three days of clear skies had meant the spring evenings had grown chilly in Poplar, and Patsy Mount wrapped her cardigan a little tighter around her as she paced the uneven flagstones of the vegetable garden. The movement served to keep her a little warmer as she navigated Fred’s overgrown kingdom, a cigarette balanced between rouged lips, but it was also a futile attempt to outpace the tangle of thoughts that had been creeping up on her all day. She had felt them, those first tendrils of panic, the moment she laid eyes on the starkly familiar symptoms of advanced typhoid that morning. From then on she had been only partially in Jeanette Su’s tense bedroom, for part of her felt disembodied and fighting furiously the surge of unwelcome memories the disease stirred up within her. She had watched it claim so many lives in the bizarre dystopia of her childhood, returning again and again as they struggled on for years in a camp with no medical supplies, until it at last took away those two lives most precious to her. She turned on her heel and strode back down the garden once more.

All day she had wanted nothing but to retreat home, to Delia, who would know how to push it from her mind for a while. But instead Patsy had come home, exhausted, to the realisation that of course Delia was on late shifts at the London Hospital all week. Dr Turner had phoned before she even had chance to shrug off her uniform, requesting that she be on hand for any further work with the typhoid case. Reluctantly she had agreed, knowing that she would be suspended from midwifery for a few days anyway, and knowing too that pushing it from her mind was now impossible.

She turned again on the flagstones, only to feel something catch at her ankle and nearly unbalance her completely. She heard the tangle of dandelions rip around her brogue as she caught herself, narrowly avoiding being impaled on the sweetpea frames. Her cigarette fell and skittered, still sparking, into the weeds. ‘Damn!’ She hissed, with uncharacteristic vulgarity. She kicked the mess of leaf and roots off her shoe and cursed Fred’s lackadaisical attitude to weeding as she fumbled for her cigarette packet. It was still in the pocket of her uniform upstairs, she realised with a ‘hmph’, and at last retreated in from the chill.

* * *

The redhead had hesitated for a moment in the hallway, but the laughter coming from the living room of Nonnatus house had been too jarring to lift her spirits, and Patsy didn’t stop to say goodnight to anyone before making her way upstairs. She had paced about the bedroom some more, her restless fingers pausing momentarily on several books, magazines, a packet of lucky strikes, but nothing could hold her attention and she resigned herself to an early bed. She would not sleep, with her mind racing as it was, but she could at least rest in the hours before Delia returned. She knew she would hear her, for in the few short days that they had been living under the same roof, each had learnt the others footstep like a summons, often appearing from their bedrooms to drag in the other by the hand, to steal kisses and delighted embraces, still unable to believe their luck that they were here at all, after so long apart.

The dreams came quick and disjointed, and after what felt like mere moments of fitful sleep, Patsy threw open her eyes and took an unsteady gasp of air, rooting herself back in reality. It was darker than she had remembered. Across the small room she could see the glow of Trixie’s blond curls, cast almost blue by the moonlight. How long had she been asleep? Freeing an arm from the tangled covers, Patsy took the alarm clock from the bedside and held it up to the light; it was quarter past three in the morning. She replaced it with a frustrated sigh, Delia would have arrived home hours ago, and would be fast asleep by now. She had probably looked in on her, and been disappointed that Patsy has not waited for her. She couldn’t wake her now, could she? Maybe she could just sit by her very quietly, just to draw a little comfort for a while? She could leave her a note for the morning to say she had been there, had thought of her? Patsy lay still in internal debate for several minutes before deciding against it and letting Delia sleep undisturbed, for there was no use in them both being exhausted.

* * *

 

Come the morning, Nurse Mount was up and out of the door before the most of the household had even stirred, exchanging only a silent nod with Sister Winifred as she collected her bag from the clinic room. It wasn’t until she had unhitched her bicycle from its rack that she even thought to check her watch, tilting it into the grey morning light to see that that it was barely after six, far too early to call back to the Su’s and Mahoney’s. Her momentum lost, the tall nurse’s shoulders slumped beneath her cape. So long as she remained busy with her patients, she could hope to outrun the feelings that were threatening to disturb her carefully composed exterior. Perhaps… perhaps she could simply outpedal her feelings instead. Pulling the black bicycle from the shed, she swung a stockinged leg over the seat and pushed off in the direction of the docks.

The cobbles shook her bike frame unforgivingly as she turned onto the dockfront, but the cool breeze carried in from the Thames seemed to soothe even the harshest of bumps. The dockyard was waking up, a steady buzz of human activity growing as the midwife pedalled the length of the waterfront with a strong, deliberate pace.

‘Morning nurse,’ came from many sides, accompanied with tipped caps or respectful nods as Patsy came to a halt beneath the shadow of an ancient crane, well rusted with years of inactivity. She returned polite nods of her own as she left the bike propped up in the shade and wove her way through the milling crowd of dock workers in search of her target. After ducking out of the way of a large trolley of crates she spotted it, as well as the only other woman to be seen on the dock front.

‘Good morning Angie.’ She said, coming level with the small lean-to known by the dockmen as ‘the caf’, as though to include the e and call it a café was a stretch to far. A stern looking woman with a dark bob looked up from where she was roughly buttering sandwiches. Despite having spent a tense day together only yesterday, there was no warmth or recognition in her expression. ‘I didn’t realise you worked here.’

‘Yes?’ The woman asked curtly, her hands continuing to butter without the guidance of her eyes.

‘A cup of tea, if you could. No sugar.’ Patsy tried to sound as bright as seemed appropriate, but Mrs Tucker made no acknowledgement she had spoken, pulling a slice of ham from a Tupperware box on the counter and constructing and slicing a sandwich before straightening up to wipe her hands on her apron. Patsy was about to repeat her request when the woman finally reached around to a steaming urn beside her, and placed a tea bag in a paper cup beneath it.

‘Milk.’ Mrs Tucker stated, rather than asked, whilst the tea brewed. Patsy nodded, smiling uneasily, willing it to brew a little quicker. Somehow Angie Tucker had turned what had seemed like a pleasantly distracting excursion into a painfully awkward moment in just a few words.

‘You’re the one seeing to our Jeanette then.’ The dark-haired woman said, at last acknowledging that the two of them had spent in fact several hours together over the last few days, between her niece’s labour and later signs of illness.

‘I am. Doctor Turner and myself will be round to her very soon.’ Patsy replied, before adding with a forced smile, ‘I was a little too early this morning. Hence the detour for tea.’

‘You know what’d made her ill don’t you. It’s him. Benny. He’s brought summat over and given it to her. Made her sick.’ Mrs Tucker dropped the teabag into the bin, enunciating her last syllable with teeth bared, her face full of dislike for her niece’s Asian husband. She slid the steaming cup towards Patsy’s waiting hands, but didn’t release it. Patsy pressed her lips together and tried to keep her tone polite as the woman eyed her across the counter.

‘Doctor Turner and myself will be running some tests on the whole household later, to find out exactly what has made your niece ill.’ Patsy returned with careful Nurse Mount professionalism. She eked the cup from Angie Tucker’s grasp and handed her the change, keen to exit this ill-fated excursion as quickly as possible. 

‘Tests? Take a look at that flat, nurse, and tell me who you think brought foreign diseases in.’

‘We’ll expect you at the community centre clinic at no later than 2pm, Mrs Tucker.’ Patsy called brightly over her shoulder, grateful to put distance between herself and an obviously concerned but mostly intolerant woman.

She hurried back to her bike and wheeled it, one-handed, as far from the makeshift café as she could before the weight of her nurses’s bag threatened to topple them both over. She found a suitable bench to prop it up against and, after several more ‘morning nurse’s from passing workers (the uniform did rather draw attention) leant against the railings to sip her drink. She watched the docks come slowly to life below her, trying to focus on something other than the divisive effect that this lethal disease was having on yet another family. As the hands of her watch neared half past, the arms of the cranes began to creak and stretch like stiff limbs. Men of all ages and races swarmed on the docksides and up and down ladders to the platforms below, dragging loops of rope and all manner of materials with them. Stubborn weeds and tiny wallflowers were spouting from gaps in the stonework below, and they turned their yellow faces to the emerging sun. The breeze, or perhaps the steam from tea, seemed to ease the knot of tension Patsy had felt growing behind her brows since the day before, and by the time she had drained the last of her cup, Nurse Mount felt almost ready to face whatever the day might bring her.

Well, almost.

* * *

 

‘If it is typhoid, we have the list of registered carriers at the surgery.’ Shelagh Turner was in full reassurance mode, and as usual her method of choice included flawless admin. She nodded encouragingly at Patsy who bit back a sigh and kept her gaze on the table. After a day full of family fears and questions, not even Mrs Turner’s rolodex was going to soothe her worries. The two of them were gathered with Trixie, Barbara and Delia over tea in the kitchen, and all of them were full of questions. She had obliged them with the basic details of Jeanette’s condition and emergency hospitalisation when she had got home, but now Trixie was musing aloud over cause and Barbara was pondering other possible diagnoses, and Patsy contemplated privately whether it was possible to drown oneself in a teacup. There was no doubt in her mind that Jeanette did indeed have typhoid, she had been gravely certain of it since the strange plucking movements of the hands had begun that morning, horribly, unforgettably familiar.

Delia could see the tension in her face and leaned forward to offer softly; ‘The antibiotic treatments are really effective now, Pats.’ The eyes beneath the dark fringe were full of unspoken concern, and Patsy saw her reach slowly towards her own arm upon the table. ‘Typhoid isn’t like it was-‘

Patsy jerked her arm away, far more forcefully than she had meant. She saw the flash of hurt on Delia’s face and realised too that the action, rather than subtly avoiding a moment of risky affection in front of the others, had now simply drawn attention to it. ‘I know that Delia,’ she hastened, feeling the colour rise in her face, ‘I-I’m talking about prevention of spread.’ She turned quickly to the sink, her back to the others, and noisily clattered her cup and saucer into the bowl. She stared down at it for several long seconds, her pulse rushing in her ears, before she heard Delia excuse herself and leave the kitchen, the faintest wobble beneath the Welsh lilt. Patsy felt three pairs of eyes on her back, she had drawn attention to herself and hurt the one person she wanted to comfort her the most in one deft move. Her mind raced for an excuse to leave too.

‘Patsy,’ Trixie chastised, ‘that was really rude.’ But something in Patsy’s face must have made the blonde think twice, for after encouraging her to apologise, she turned the conversation swiftly onto the topic of jam. The others followed obligingly, pausing their chatter only to glance at Patsy as she left the kitchen, with a grateful nod that they had not pressed further.

The wood-panelled hallway felt blissfully cool to Patsy’s burning face. She fumbled for a handkerchief and held it to her mouth for a moment, willing her unsteady breaths into a normal rhythm. These last few days, and everything they had brought with them, had shaken her more than she expected, to the point that even her Nurse Mount armour felt dented and unsteady. She waited until the faint tremble in her chest settled before starting for the stairs, rounding the corner briskly to-

‘Delia.’ She stumbled, nearly walking straight into the shorter nurse. She was stood at the side table, thumbing roughly through post. She didn’t look up. ‘Delia, please.’

Delia paused, her fingers hovering over sloping handwriting. A strand of dark hair had fallen from her ponytail, and Patsy, glancing back down the hall to check that they were unobserved, reached to tuck it behind her ear. Delia twitched away at the touch, her eyes wet and hurt.

‘Feels horrible doesn’t it.’ She said, her accent thick with emotion as she took in Patsy’s loom of dismay. ‘The person you love, flinching away from you like you’re some kind of leper.’

‘Delia please,’ Patsy whispered again. ‘I wanted to let you comfort me, I did - it’s just, the others – We just need to be discreet.’

‘Patsy you literally waltz about the place with Trixie on a regular basis, walk arm in arm with Barbara as often as Tom does, but god forbid _I_ might give one moment of affection to my _friend_ …’

‘Delia this isn’t the place,’ Patsy insisted, glancing anxiously back down the hall. ‘It was different before, when we going to have the flat-’

‘Isn’t the place? Then why have me move here at all?’ Delia gathered the envelopes roughly together and tossed them back onto the table. She gave Patsy a long questioning look, but the taller woman could give no answer. ‘I’ll see you around, Pats. Maybe down a dark alley or the crack between the potting shed and the outside toilet.’

Delia turned on her heel and hurried upstairs, her eyes glistening. Patsy watched her go, watched her heels vanish at the curve of the staircase, and pulled her handkerchief from her pocket once more.

* * *

 

With Jeanette Su now transferred to hospital, Dr Turner and Nurse Mount turned to the difficult task of relaying the test results back to her family. Blood tests had been taken from everyone, as well as the neighbours who passed most frequently through their communal kitchens. The whole process had taken an entire afternoon, what with the many questions and theories put to them by each person tested, the most hurtful of which came, unsurprisingly, from Jeanette’s severe aunt who seemed hell bent on using as many racial stereotypes as she could muster. Both Patsy and Dr Turner had given up trying to reason with her, and managed to let her cruelty rebound off their professional barricades, but the words sent Jeanette’s husband into a spiral of guilt and self-doubt.

However, it was impossible to maintain total Nurse Mount detachment when they sat down to tell Jeanette’s grandmother that the tests had revealed that she was a typhoid carrier, the sole source of her granddaughter’s illness. The woman had wept with guilt, thrust her great-grandchild into Patsy’s arms with the fear that her hands might hurt someone else too, and begun washing them with scalding water straight from the kettle, for the tenements had no hot running water. Patsy’s visits over the next few days found the woman in a constant state of panic, doing nothing but scrubbing and pacing and scrubbing again with kettle after kettle of water, until her hardworking hands bled with the ordeal. She wouldn’t listen to anyone’s reassurances about managing her carrier status, and Patsy left each day feeling at a total loss of how to support her.

She returned home one afternoon to find most of the nurses gathered in the living room, Trixie and Delia playing a half-hearted game of cards whilst Phyllis read out the broadsheet headlines from her armchair.

‘Good afternoon Nurse Mount.’ Phyllis examined her carefully over the rim of her spectacles. ‘How is your case with Dr Turner?’ Patsy sank into a chair opposite her and pulled the nurses cap from her head with a sigh, willing Delia to look at her.

‘Complex.’ She offered, eventually. ‘The grandmother is making herself sick with worry. She’s surrounded by constant reminders of this awful situation she blames herself for. The neighbours making it worse. I just wish I knew how to help her.’

Phyllis nodded in sombre understanding. ‘I’m sure you are doing so already. This will be a difficult time for all of them.’ She tilted her curly head in the smallest nod that seemed to say ‘ _and for you’_.

The quiet of the room was broken abruptly by a clatter from the hallway. Delia and Patsy both rose quickly to their feet to investigate, but were halted by the harried arrival of Barbara, holding one shoe and looking the smallest bit dishevelled.

‘Oh crikey, I’ve just done the stupidest thing.’ She admitted, looking sheepish.

‘Was that you, Nurse Gilbert?’ Asked Phyllis, her brow furrowed. ‘It sounded like someone had dropped something down the stairs.’

‘Oh, yes, that was me. Well I dropped myself. I dropped myself down the stairs.’ Barbara rambled breathlessly. The other nurses exchanged concerned and puzzled glances.

‘Are you quite alright Barbara?’ Asked Patsy, still on her feet.

‘Oh! Oh yes, I’m quite alright. But no! Look what I’ve done!’ Barbara held up her shoe, a sensible patent navy number, rather nice apart from the fact that the heel was very nearly detached altogether, hanging precariously from a small strip of sole. She pulled a troubled face. ‘I’m supposed to be going with Tom to this meal any minute and I haven’t got any suitable glue for this at all!’

‘You haven’t got time for glue,’ Chimed Trixie, suddenly coming to life at the table. ‘Go to my room, there’s a pair of red heels on the shelf in the wardrobe.’

Barbara looked at her with flustered embarrassment. ‘Oh Trixie no, I wasn’t – I can’t possibly-’

‘Of course you can, they’ll go quite charmingly with that outfit.’ Trixie addressed her compliment to the cards in her hand rather than to Barbara, who was shuffling uncertainly from foot to foot. ‘Be quick about it, you haven’t got long.’ She risked a glance at the anxious woman, and her slightly wooden expression softened. ‘ _Go on_ , Barbara. Or else you’ll be walking along with one leg longer than the other in those.’

Barbara gave an apologetic smile and hurried from the room again, the doorbell ringing almost as soon as her footsteps reached the top of the stairs. Those remaining listened with subdued attention to her harried steps on the landing, then stairs again, and then opening and slamming shut of the front door.

‘I think you rather saved the day there Miss Franklin.’ Said Phyllis, studying Trixie over her paper.

Patsy pulled a cushion into her lap and wrapped her tired arms around it as Trixie gave a thin smile. ‘Sartorial emergencies are my speciality.’ The blond replied, shuffling her cards distractedly whilst Phyllis returned to her headlines.

‘Is it still a little difficult?’ Delia asked softly, a few moments later. Trixie swallowed and gave a small nod, her eyes sparkling as she met Delia’s gaze.

‘A little. It shouldn’t be, it’s perfectly lovely that they should enjoy each other’s company.’

Delia reached out and gave the blonde’s forearm a reassuring squeeze, stilling the anxious movement of her hands. Trixie smiled, a real one this time, and patted Delia’s hand gratefully. Patsy found herself unable to draw her eyes away from the gesture. She hugged her cushion a little tighter to her chest, and something within her ached for that comforting touch to be hers alone. Perhaps she was staring a little too intently, for she was suddenly aware of Delia’s eyes on her, and with a swallow she tore her gaze away.

‘I think it’s time I got out of this uniform.’ She sighed to the room in general, and excused herself upstairs, pausing by the banister in the hope that Delia might follow. She didn’t.

A few minutes later, dressed in comfortable slacks and blissfully free of nylon stockings, Patsy made her way in the direction of the kitchen, in the hope that the delivery of a sweet tea might help thaw the frosty atmosphere between herself and Delia. Maybe an apology biscuit on the saucer, if any had survived the confectionary whirlwind that was Sister Monica Joan. Patsy was brought to a halt in the hallway as the voice of the nun in question drifted in through the open back door.

‘Aha! A flame-haired assistant sent to aid me in my efforts - to bring colour, where there is only earth.’ Sister Monica Joan had beamed at her as soon as she had poked an enquiring head around the doorframe, and before she knew it Patsy had been employed as assistant gardener whilst the elderly nun hurried around the small plot, directing her to water here, there and everywhere. She was pleased to notice that the paths were considerably clearer than they had been a few nights ago, a pile of tall dandelions, roots and all, were wilting in a battered trug near the shed. Fred had clearly got as fed up of them as she had.

‘Pass me that plant!’ Sister Monica Joan ordered from her kneeler. ‘The yellow one!’

Patsy paused in her watering to look, puzzled, in the direction of the nun’s gaze. ‘I don’t think those are for planting Sister Monica Joan, I think these may be weeds that Fred’s already pulled up?’

Sister Monica Joan gave her a disapproving look and pulled the trug towards her. ‘I don’t believe in weeds.’

* * *

 

Patsy finally made it to the kitchen as the evening drew in. Delia was definitely getting at least two apology biscuits now. She was stopped in her tracks by the sight of Delia herself at the washing up bowl, cardigan rolled to the elbows and stray suds clinging to her clothes. She turned very slightly to see who had entered as Patsy eased the door gently closed behind her.

‘I was coming to make you a cup of tea.’ Patsy ventured softly, coming to stand behind the shorter nurse.

‘I’m washing up just now.’ Delia replied, slotting a soapy plate into the drying rack.

Patsy bent her head and pressed her lips very gently to the back of Delia’s shoulder. She felt Delia release a tense breath at her touch.

‘Would you like some help?’ She offered quietly. Delia nodded and Patsy placed a single kiss to her shoulder before coming to stand alongside her, tea towel at the ready. They stood in silence for a minute or two, passing soapy cups and saucers between them, the pile of dry items growing steadily on the counter. Without a word Patsy reached down into the sink and took Delia’s hand beneath the bubbles, and Delia finally met her gaze. She looked tired, and her eyes lacked some of their usual humour.

‘Are you sure this is the place for that.’ She warned gently, but she returned the squeeze beneath the water and with that touch their spell of awkwardness was broken. ‘We’re an efficient little team when we want to be.’ Said Delia casually, as though they had not been tiptoeing frostily around each other for days.

‘I would have been here sooner, only I was intercepted by Sister Monica Joan.’ Patsy replied, withdrawing her hand and resuming drying. Delia chuckled and leant gently into Patsy’s shoulder, who returned the contact. God, she had missed that laugh.

‘Aye, she does that.’

‘I tell you, that woman declares herself addled and useless at least once a week, and yet she comes out with the most profound things.’ Patsy buffed another teacup dry thoughtfully. ‘I’m not convinced that she’s not simply become psychic in her old age.’

‘Oh?’ Delia raised an eyebrow.

‘She’s been driving Fred mad replanting the dandelions in his newly tended veg patch.’

Delia burst out laughing and very nearly dropped the saucer she was washing.  ‘I’m not sure that’s profound, Pats, I think that’s just Monica Joan aggravating him into supplying her with jam.’

Patsy smiled and took the saucer before it could get into any further danger. ‘It was what she said afterwards, she said… why should the weeds struggle to survive in mere cracks, just because somebody deigns them a weed. She said… that weeds are _simply a flower that someone decides is the wrong place_ , that they deserve somewhere to flourish.’

Delia looked unconvinced as she pulled the plug and studied Patsy’s face, who seemed deep in thought.

‘Are we still talking about dandelions?’ She asked, taking the end of Patsy’s tea towel to dry her hands.

Patsy looked down at her, and the fog and tension that had circled her mind for days seemed to lift and little.

‘I think I know what I need to do.’ Patsy said slowly.

‘Of course you do, love. Now where’s this tea?’

* * *

 

The next morning Nurse Mount arrived at the clinic in search of Mrs Turner. If anyone knew policy and administration, it was Shelagh. With her plan explained the doctor’s wife sprang into action, her fingers whirring at the rotary dial whilst Patsy nibbled her thumbnail, waiting for the verdict.

‘Well,’ ventured Shelagh, replacing the receiver at last, ‘I won’t have a certain answer until the housing department ring later this afternoon, but it looks promising. Margaret Mahoney, as a registered typhoid carrier, living in house without hot running water is not an attractive prospect to the Department of Health. They’re willing to support a demand that she is offered one of the new council flats as soon as possible, where she’ll able to manage her risk much better.’

‘How soon?’ Enquired Patsy, barely able to believe their luck.

‘How soon can she pack a bag?’ Said Shelagh with a smile. ‘I made the dangers to public health very clear to the last gentlemen I spoke to. The use of the word ‘epidemic’ may have been a little heavy handed-’

‘Oh Mrs Turner, you are a marvel!’ Patsy got to her feet and the two women grasped excited hands across the desk, much to the bemusement of Dr Turner who chose that moment to stride through the door, his usually furrowed brow softening at the sight.

‘What are we celebrating?’ He asked, heaving his bag onto the desk between them. Shelagh related their developments to him as quickly as she could, and his smile grew wider with each detail. ‘Oh that’s _wonderful_! Well _done_ Nurse Mount.’

* * *

 

And so it was that Margaret Mahoney was moved into a spotlessly clean flat along with several members of her family, and her precious great-grandchild, before Jeanette was even released from hospital. Patsy visited her just once more, at the end of rounds on a Friday afternoon and was pleased to see the cracks in the woman’s hands were healing steadily, her anxious scrubbing now subsided. She had been given a second chance, and a place in which she could flourish.

With that turn of events in mind, Patsy pedalled back to Nonnatus with a heart lighter and more full of love than it had felt for some time. She hurried up the wide staircase to discard her uniform before calling in on Delia. No sooner had her brogues hit the landing, the door of the nurse in question swung open and Patsy found herself dragged by the elbow through it and into Delia’s bedroom.

‘Crikey Deels, you’re going to earn quite the reputation if you go about abducting people from hallways like this.’ Patsy righted her cap and began to smooth her tunic before she caught sight of Delia’s expression of barely contained amusement. ‘Goodness me, what is it?’

‘ _Look,_ they’re in every room in the house, Fred is absolutely _fuming_.’ Delia stepped to the side to reveal, displayed in what was probably the ugliest jug in Poplar, a bunch of the most enormous dandelions Patsy had ever seen. Their large heads dipped and swayed in the draft from the window, their fat leaves arranged haphazardly in the vase and their tiny petals an obnoxiously sunny yellow.

‘Oh Sister Monica Joan,’ Patsy breathed, and Delia laughed with pure childlike glee beside her. ‘Oh she hasn’t.’

‘Grown, harvested, and displayed in every room.’ Nodded Delia, clearly impressed as well as deeply amused by the entire thing. ‘Kitchen, chapel, two on the dining table. And a bunch in Mrs Gee’s shop window, would you believe?’

‘The woman takes mischief to an entirely new level.’ Agreed Patsy, before tearing her eyes away from the bizarre floral arrangement. ‘Look, Deels, about the other day.’

Delia too drew her eyes from the window, looking at Patsy with an uncertain look upon her face.

‘What is it?’ She asked quietly, her eyes searching Patsy’s face for clues.

‘The other day, about – about touches and being discreet and –’ Patsy began, but Delia shook her head and took a step away, palms raised as if deflecting the words she were scared would come.

‘No, Patsy please – if me being here is making you uncomfortable already…’

‘ _Listen_ ,’ Patsy caught hold of both raised hands and drew Delia back to her. ‘You were right. We are not hidden in the cracks, and I’m not having to secrete my love into the creases of pages your mother might read. That was so nearly our fate, but we are _here_ together. And until we can save up that deposit again, _this_ is the place that we will flourish.’ She looked down at Delia, whose worried eyes had softened into warm pools, shimmering with the tears that brimmed at the corners. Patsy squeezed her warm hands and felt the very action drive courage into her veins. ‘I don’t always feel best about myself, my - _ways._ I feel like I may well be one of Sister Monica Joan’s plants, deigned a weed and struggling in a crack for a being little, _different_ , somehow. But I mustn’t bring you down with me…’ She trailed off aware that she was rambling.

Delia shook her head in grateful disbelief. ‘I’d rather be a weed in a crack with you than a rose to anyone else, Pats.’

‘You sentimental old thing.’ Patsy teased, and with a heel placed firmly against the door, drew her in for a grateful kiss.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Question, I feel like 'a wonder' isn't what Patsy would call Mrs Turner, what would be an era-appropriate term for 'you're a star'?
> 
> Bonus picture of sad Pats, you know, for context.  
> https://kpbs.media.clients.ellingtoncms.com/img/photos/2016/04/01/Call_Midwife_S5_Ep3_1_tx700.jpg?8e0a8887e886a6ff6e13ee030987b3616fc57cd3


	3. Delia Busby: Domestic Goddess

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alternative title: Delia Busby and the Fluff that Fluffed.  
> A light hearted interlude between two slightly heavy, and rather lengthy, chapters. Please take this as a thank you for all your lovely comments and feedback, they make my day and let me know if I'm doing this alright so thank you! Feel free to fetch a cup of tea or coffee and a well-buttered snack of your choice before reading this one.

It was barely 6:15 on a cool May morning and yet Delia Busby was up, worshipping at the altar of pure domestic bliss. A mug of milky coffee at her elbow and a single daffodil in a jam jar flanked a biblical-looking shaft of early morning sunlight that spilled across the kitchen table, illuminating that most holy of holies:  Mrs Busby’s welshcakes. Operation Domestic Bliss, a new weekly ritual of Patsy and Delia’s, was technically supposed to start at 6:30, a full hour before the rest of the house gathered for breakfast. But the parcel, carefully posted in Tupperware and brown paper all the way from Pembrokeshire, had been too tempting and Delia had snuck down early to taste just one (alright, two) of the homely treats before Pasty awoke.

After the first few days of elation after Delia had moved into Nonnatus, the pair had quickly felt the reality of keeping both their secrecy and their sanity begin to sink in. Delia struggled to keep her distance after agonising months apart, whilst Patsy had become almost obsessively aware of how they may be perceived at any given moment. They had clashed and drifted in hissed arguments and tense silences in the few opportunities they could be alone, those precious moments spent on conflict instead of comfort. Until, in a bedroom heady with the scent of the dandelions of rebellion, they had promised each other that they would make this situation work. Certainly, being two dubiously-moralled women living in a house of nuns and with the local Royal Collage of Nurses representative (Phyllis Crane, naturally) may not be perfect, but they would make it possible, and find a slice of normality all of their own. And so it was that their new morning ritual was born.

‘Delia Busby, you perfect rotter. You’ve started without me.’ Came a whisper from the doorway. Patsy Mount stood there in all her striped pyjama glory. Red hair pulled back into a messy ponytail, fringe all over the place from sleep and milky skin glowing in the morning shadows, she looked almost angelic. _If_ you overlooked the disapproving expression on her face.

‘Guilty,’ grinned Delia, her accent thick with nostalgia ‘Come and join me, cariad. Coffee?’

‘Don’t be trying to charm your way out of this with your Welsh ways,’ grumbled the sleepy redhead, pulling the opposite chair from beneath the table and sinking down into it with a small ‘hmph’.

Delia gave her a wink and set about making a second mug of coffee, pressing it into Patsy’s hands and pressing a tender kiss to her forehead. ‘Welsh cakes?’

‘If there’s any left…’ Said Patsy with a sulky look into the still nearly-full box.

‘Hush, I’ve only had one. Alright two. But I ate them cold look, I didn’t even want to turn on the griddle pan without you, my love.’ The two of them beamed at one another in simple delight across the table. It was almost, for a single hour once week when the rota’s lined up, all they had ever dreamed of.

‘Do you want a hand?’ Offered Patsy quietly, sipping her coffee, but Delia declined, busying herself with the griddle and the turning of cakes, slipping two plates and the butter dish onto the table whilst they warmed. The redhead watched her with a faint smile, and from the corner of her eye Delia watched Patsy watch her.

‘It was quite a good idea of mine this breakfast lark.’ Said Delia a few minutes later, sliding a sizeable batch of hot buttered welshcakes onto each of their plates.

‘You say this every week, Deels,’ Patsy replied with a raised eyebrow. ‘But yes, it’s an awfully good idea. As is this-’

Delia bit back a squeal as two sets of icy toes came shooting up her pyjama legs. ‘Don’t try and steal my warmth as well as my welshcakes, Patience Mount.’ She protested, wiggling out of reach, but soon she patted her lap for Patsy to swing her feet up onto, and she warmed the cold toes beneath her pyjama top whilst they both ate, and basked in the sunshine and the silence of the morning. Tiny particles of dust swirled in the sunlight from the window, and in its brightness Patsy’s hair seemed to glow like amber as she sipped her coffee.

‘I have to admit Deels, these really are rather good.’

‘Mam will be so pleased.’ Said Delia, with just a hint of sarcasm. ‘God love her, this might not be quite what she intended me to use them for, but it’s certainly made my morning.’

‘Oh, and here was I thinking that was just me?’ Patsy commented drily, earning her the smallest tickle beneath the table. All too soon, the first creak of a door could be heard upstairs, and the boiler hummed into life as the daily scramble for the bathroom began. They exchanged a sad smile across the breakfast things that said ‘ _well, it was fun while it lasted_ ,’ and both stood up to gather the plates.

‘I’ve got it, Deels.’ Murmured Patsy, easing Delia back into her chair with a gentle hand to her shoulder. ‘Thank you for making breakfast.’ The redhead paused, looking down at her petite companion with an amused expression,

‘Something on my face?’ Delia asked, confused.

‘Actually yes,’ Patsy stooped to brush her thumb across Delia’s chin. ‘Melted butter, mucky pup.’

Delia smiled and Patsy bent to place a kiss to the smile, relishing the last moments of privacy.

‘How very brazen, Nurse Mount.’ Whispered Delia, running a hand up Patsy’s warm forearm. ‘Still on for tomorrow? You haven't changed your mind?’

‘I suppose, if I’ve nothing better to do.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was brought to you by my eating an entire pack of buttered potato scones in three days. Inspiration comes from everywhere folks!  
> Next chapter is a Delia one too so I've shot my nice pattern in the foot already, but who doesn't love Delia?


	4. Delia Busby and the Worryingly Vague Legal Situation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Long Update! The realities of being queer in the 1960s begin to sink in.  
> I found these next couple chapters difficult to organise, theres a bit of overlap between perspectives that I hope isn't too confusing, let me know what you think?  
> Anyway, here's this.

They had gotten rather good at discreetly spending time together over the last few months. Alongside the domestic bliss breakfasts and the usual fun with Barbara and Trixie (and Phyllis, on the rare occasion that she could be persuaded) Patsy and Delia had learnt to be very vocal about plans with _other_ friends, from the nurses home or various invented cousins. They would then leave at different times, on the same evening, and meet up a little way from the convent and the most familiar streets of Poplar.

It was of course painfully sad that such measures had to be taken, but it almost added something, mused Delia. She was stood before her long bedroom mirror, thoughtfully adjusting the hang of her skirt and smoothing her new satin blouse into place. Not leaving together, making plans to meet on a corner or in café, and then arriving there alone, glancing around nervously for the familiar face. It felt more like a date. Tonight in particular felt that way, for after making their separate departures, they were meeting at the Gateways club, a bar underground both in terms of it literally being a cellar, and also in its being so tucked away you had to be 'in the know' to find it at all. It was also the only place in the whole of London, possibly the whole of England, in which two women in love could dance the night away uninterrupted.

A rustling by the bedroom door dragged Delia from her thoughts, and she glanced over to see a small cream envelope slide beneath it. She went to retrieve it but froze at the sound of voices on the landing.

‘Off to see your other favourite nurses, Patsy?’ Came Trixie’s cheeky twinkle. Delia couldn’t help but smile where she stood. ‘Have a lovely time without us all won’t you.’

‘Thank you Trixie, I’ll try my very best. See you later.’ Came Patsy’s response, close to the door. Delia waited until two sets of footsteps had moved away before stooping to retrieve the note. A large looped ‘D’ was all that was on the front, and inside just two short, inconspicuous lines.

_Meet you downstairs. I’ll be the one looking  
terrified. Cocktails are on you. Pats X_

Delia bit back a nervous laugh just before someone knocked at the door. ‘One moment!’ She hastily tucked the note beneath the cover of a weighty gynaecology textbook on her desk before pulling the door open with a smile.

‘Delia! Oh – are you going out too?’ Trixie was propped up in the doorway, in a silky mandarin-collared set of pyjamas, cigarette in hand. She looked Delia up and down and gave an approving little nod. ‘I would say what a shame, but you look far too nice for a night of gin rummy with me.’

Delia blushed gratefully. Fashion was not her strong suit, preferring her reliable cardigans and pencil skirts to even attempting whatever new garment Trixie was endorsing from the pages of Vogue. But she had made an effort tonight, even braving a sleeveless blouse, and a compliment from Trixie must mean she was getting something right. She was about to respond with something to that effect when the blonde raised a silencing finger.

‘Hold on, I’ve got a set of pearly studs that would finish this off beautifully!’ Trixie turned on a slippered heel and trotted back to her own room, Delia following her cigarette trail uncertainly.

‘Oh, Trix – you really don’t have to –’

But Trixie was back in a flash, with a pair of rich grey pearl studs balanced on her palm like two beads of smoke. They were, admittedly, a very good match to the satin charcoal and deep purple flowers of Delia’s skirt.

‘Take them, they complement you too well not to.’ Trixie insisted, taking a drag on her cigarette and holding out a palm to collect Delia’s simple studs while she made the switch. ‘Perfect. Although return them by midnight or they’ll turn into pumpkins.’

Delia chuckled and straightened up. ‘How do I look?’

‘Devine. I do hope he appreciates the effort.’ Trixie responded with a wink.

Delia felt the colour rise in her cheeks and she hastened to take her plain earrings back before giving Trixie a quick squeeze goodbye. The blond seemed a little surprised by the action but waved her off with a twinkly flutter of French manicure.

Delia felt as though the flutter had flown all the way into her chest as she made her way down the front steps of Nonnatus house, handbag tucked under her elbow and hands anxiously checking her pockets for her purse, keys, and emergency hair lacquer. She buffed the glass covering the timetable at the bus stop to check her hair for flyaways before finally boarding the double decker, resigned to the fact that however she looked now is how she would look when she got there. Mind you, she thought, when she did get there Patsy would be there too, and nothing could compare to that anyway.

It was not a short bus ride, and Delia wondered how far ahead of her Patsy would be. She also found herself imagining what her mother would think if she could see what she was up to. After months of battling her mother’s renewed fears about the dangers of London, here she was journeying unescorted of an evening, on her way underground bar halfway across town to meet her lady lover. If ever there was a possible cause for spontaneous human combustion, Delia mused.

To any bystander, the petite woman in sensible heels looked lost, having walked past the same door on an unassuming Chelsea street corner three times before stopping and knocking. Unlike their first visit, it wasn’t because Delia didn’t know where Gateways was, but simply because the butterflies in her stomach were suddenly going like the clappers. She almost wished she had one of Patsy’s cigarettes to steady her nerves. Eventually Delia knocked, and a woman in a waistcoat and red lipstick let her inside with a smile, before hanging up her coat at the top of stairs and handing her a small ticket in return.

Delia had hesitated in front of her bedroom mirror a moment too long and doubted her outfit, and she pulled the familiar cardigan she had grabbed on her way out a little tighter around her, before descending the steps into the basement. The walls were a dark pink, and from the bottom of the stairs came the glow of lamps and the warm sound of women’s laughter over a jazz record. It took her just a moment to find Patsy in the hubbub, her flaming hair a beacon even in the low light and the dozens of customers. Delia paused at the bottom of the stairs to admire her from a distance before Patsy’s eyes found her. She was all long limbs draped around a bar stool across the room, her expression nonchalant and her jaw on her chin as she murmured something to a dark haired woman behind the bar.

‘Is this seat taken?’ Delia asked softly, coming level with the pine-coloured bar.

‘Delia!’ Patsy beamed, and the two women smiled hesitantly before leaning in for a slightly awkward kiss on the cheek. Neither of them was used to such open displays of affection and the action suddenly felt fumbled and unfamiliar. The curly woman behind the bar smiled and moved away, buffing a highball glass as she went.

‘Have you been waiting long?’ The Welshwoman asked, clambering slightly inelegantly onto the high stool. Patsy and her long legs made these things look so much more graceful.

‘Not at all. Just long enough that it would be impolite not to order.’ The redhead slid a glass of scotch and ice towards her, which Delia received gratefully.

‘I still can’t believe I’m here with you.’ Delia admitted, taking a sip of amber for courage.

Patsy lowered her voice and leant in closer ‘I’m very glad you are. I’ve had at least two very masculine women ask me to dance with them already. I’m running out of excuses and the barmaid just finds the whole thing amusing.’

‘It’s the slacks.’ Delia teased, feeling her nerves dissipate. She couldn’t blame anyone for trying their luck with Patsy. She took Delia’s breath away even in her pyjamas, but tonight she was the epitome of effortless beauty. Her thick hair tied back in a high ponytail contrasted brightly with her white blouse, and her long pins were encased in houndstooth slacks, cropped above the ankle. She had forgone accessories, other than immaculately winged eye liner, and a pack of cigarettes that peeked from the pocket of her shirt.

‘You look rather lovely, Deels.’ Murmured Patsy, her head tilted thoughtfully to one side. Her eyes drifted from the pearly earrings to the single acrylic bangle Delia had chosen. ‘This cardigan is a little big though isn’t it? Almost as though it might not be yours….’ Patsy raised a pencilled brow, and the brunette couldn’t help but smile guiltily until her gaze.

‘It went with the outfit.’ She protested weakly, as Patsy slowly raised a hand and pushed the too-big collar of the cardigan away from her neck, exposing a bare shoulder. Delia squirmed, an embarrassed creeping to her lips. ‘ _Pats…_ ’

‘What, it’s not illegal.’ Patsy grinned mischievously. As soon as the words were out however her features shifted into fearful realisation, and Delia’s face quickly fell as the notion became apparent to her too. ‘Oh goodness it’s not illegal is it? This bar? We’re not going to be-’

‘It’s not illegal.’ Came another Welsh voice, and the two of them turned to see the woman behind the bar had returned. She was a glamourous woman with dark curls and a high-buttoned cardigan and blouse, and a slightly offended expression. ‘We’re a perfectly licensed establishment.’

Delia and Patsy exchanged an uncertain glance, each with a hand reaching slowly for a handbag or a coat to make a premature exit. The older woman took in the concern on the young couple’s faces, and gave them what she hoped was a reassuring smile. ‘Be careful who you talk to of course, I’m sure that goes without saying, but there’s nothing illegal in being here.. The law can’t fathom how two women could possibly be together anyway.’ The last comment sounded a little bitter and she changed tack, ‘Anything I can get you?’

Delia released a breath she hadn’t realised she was holding, and patted the redhead’s arm, who gave her a slightly sheepish look in return.

‘A little dutch courage, I think.’

* * *

Two martini glasses drained, the pair took to the dance floor. They began a little hesitantly at the edge of the mass of bodies, unfamiliar with the record and still slightly daunted by the confidence of the Gateway regulars around them. A few minutes later however, Delia’s eyes lit up as the opening bars of a Joni James song filled the basement club. They had waltzed around Trixie’s record player to this very track when the other nurses had been out on call a few weeks ago, and they exchanged a look that affirmed that they both remembered. By the time the first lines were heard Patsy’s arm had drifted to its familiar place across the back of Delia’s shoulders, and record led them further and further into the throng of dancers.

After an upbeat half dozen modern records that had them both spinning and ponytails flying, the pair emerged from the dance floor and fell gratefully into a booth. Its upholstery was faded with years of use, but after such unexpected exertions any place to rest was welcome.

‘Gosh, I’m out of practice.’ Said Patsy, a little breathless and her red fringe damp with perspiration. ‘Would you like another drink?’

‘I thought the cocktails were on me tonight?’ Delia replied, sliding her purse across the table, but Patsy stopped its advance with a long finger and slid it back across the table to its owner.

‘You got the last one! I’m very much about equality.’ Patsy winked. They both paused, the irony of what she had said hanging between them. A bittersweet smile between them acknowledged that they had both noted it, but wordlessly they resolved to brush it off. Patsy duly disappeared to the bar, returning with two more of the barmaid’s brightly coloured concoctions. In the few minutes Delia was alone at the table, she felt the stirrings of uncertainty that had risen within her earlier creep back into her chest. It must have crept into her expression too because she was suddenly aware of Patsy looking at her with concern as she slipped back into her seat.

‘Are you alright Deels? Have you had a little too much to drink?’ Patsy fingered the glasses anxiously, ready to push them away.

‘No, no it’s nothing.’ Delia shook her head and took her drink with a thin smile. Patsy reached out a gentle hand and touched her forearm, such an innocent act of comfort that had caused such upset between them not long ago.

‘It’s not nothing Delia, do talk to me?’

Delia kept her eyes on the dancefloor and her lips pressed together as she tried to string her worries into words. It was several long moments before she spoke.

‘I’m just thinking about what that woman at the bar said earlier.’ She said, finally meeting Patsy’s quizzical gaze. ‘About the law not… not seeing two women. Patsy, do we know where we stand at all, legally? I’ve tried to look it up but I can’t find anything about… you know.’ Delia trailed off and Patsy sat back with a sigh, resting her head against the faded wall of the booth.

‘I don’t think we stand anywhere, honestly. We’ve both seen first-hand how the law treats… _homosexuals._ ’ Patsy lowered her voice at this last word, her tone carrying the memories of broken men they had encountered on the psychiatric wards during their nursing training, as well as a troubled young husband she had worked with only last year. She had sat next to his pregnant wife and struggled to remain professionally neutral whilst the word ‘queer’ was daubed across the front door. Patsy ran a thumb across Delia’s knuckles, grounding herself in the present. ‘But women, two women together. I’m not the world can see how a woman could possibly do or be _anything_ without a man, and so we simply… cease to exist.’

Wordlessly, Delia took Patsy’s hand in both of her own across the table; not existing was not protection, there was too much ambiguity in Patsy’s response, what of their jobs, their futures? She swallowed her worry and together they turned back to watch the other revellers. Most of them danced and drank in pairs of highly feminine women partnered with women with masculine haircuts and men’s slacks. ‘Can I ask either of you two ladies to dance?’ One woman in a shirt and tie had asked whilst they sipped their drinks. Patsy had raised her eyebrows in surprise and looked at Delia who found herself saying ‘We’re here to dance with each other, thank you’ pulling Patsy back onto the dancefloor. It seemed to Delia that wherever they went, she and Patsy would always be unusual.

‘Delia Busby, that was very nearly _rude_.’ Whispered Patsy admiringly, looping her arms around the shorter woman’s neck as they swayed to a slightly mournful Roy Orbison track. She wished they would play something a little lighter to distract from the slightly sombre conversation they had just had, but the tempo of the records was slowing as the club neared closing time, and the crowd on the dance floor was thinning around them.

‘I didn’t mean to be _rude_ , but I’m certainly not here to dance with anyone but you.’ Delia admitted. She caught sight of the brassy clock on the wall and her stomach sank a little at the thought of the long journey home still ahead of them. ‘Oh Pats, it’s gone ten already.’

‘A few more minutes, sweetheart.’ Murmured Patsy with a sigh, pulling Delia still closer and tucking her dark head beneath her own chin without breaking rhythm. Delia marvelled at how unguarded Patsy had become over the course of a single evening in this safe haven. She wrapped her arms a little tighter around Patsy’s waist and pushed the worries from her mind, centering herself here in this moment; she could hear the steady percussion of the taller woman’s heartbeat through her blouse, smell the musky undertones of her scent beneath the cologne, feel the weight of the embrace around her shoulders. She would store this moment like a photograph, so that whatever happened she could return to it and say look here, look how we created such perfect love despite it all. The pair rotated slowly on the floor for a little while longer, each trying to ignore the time limit on this escape from reality.

‘Maybe we should get a record player.’ Said Delia softly. ‘Then we could dance like this any night we wanted. Like any other couple.’ She was suddenly, and for the first time, properly aware of the room of swaying women around them, a community of invisible people beneath the pavement, no doubt all wishing for that very same thing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I always appreciate that CTM doesn't allow for blind nostalgia, the 1950s and 60s might have had great hair and a penchant for pencil skirts but it was also a shitty time to be poor, black, asian, irish, gay, or god forbid - a woman.


	5. Patsy Mount Just Came Out To Have A Good Time

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know what to title chapters, can you tell? I was impatient to get this next part out, hope you've all had a happy Easter/any excuse for a day off :)

The first time they had visited the Gateways club, Patsy and Delia had barely made it down the steps into the basement bar before pulling one another into a giddy embrace. Partially in gratitude of being able to do so at last, and partially due to the sheer nerves brought on by what they were doing, and what it meant. Too nervous to even take another step into the room, they had waltzed slowly on the periphery of the dancefloor with foreheads pressed together. They had barely dared to glance at the other dancers, until slowly the nerves subsided and they had inched their waltzing way to the bar and then fallen gratefully into a booth to hide their blushes.

This second time they planned their arrival more carefully, now being familiar with Gateway’s easily unnoticed entrance, they had made sure to set off separately. Patsy was soon perched on a stool to the side of the U-shaped bar, where she could watch the room and try to collect herself. She had made polite conversation with the elegant older woman behind the bar, ordered herself a scotch and given herself a stern but fair pep talk whilst she waited for her date. Not that she _needed_ a pep talk, that would suggest that she was nervous. Patsy was simply… excited? Oh lord, here was Delia. Who was she fooling, just the sight of that familiar silhouette framed by the stairway was enough to send her insides soaring in delight whilst something else within her, possibly her jaw, felt like it had hit the floor. She looked away as Delia began to cross the room, pretending to watch the dancers as she schooled her features into what she hoped was a look of composure. _Patience Mount_ , she scolded internally, _you have survived Japanese internment and delivered over three hundred infants into this world in all sorts of circumstances, I’ll be damned if you’re going to be reduced to a nervous wreck by five foot three inches of-_

‘Is this seat taken?’ Came a gentle Welsh lilt as Delia, resplendent in purple and muted silver, emerged from the crowd. Her dark hair was smoothed back into a high ponytail, the glossy ends of which just grazed the top of her shoulders, from which hung a familiar cardigan of deep purple. The sleeves were too long and were rolled twice at the wrists, and her blue eyes sparkled with an unguarded smile as they met Patsy’s.

_So be it. I am a nervous wreck._

* * *

The evening seemed to pass in a blissful procession of all the things they longed to do but usually could not. They danced, they flirted, they held hands across the table, stole sips of each other’s drinks and even stole chaste kisses when the alcohol rendered them brave enough. After the third cocktail, Delia had leant close to teach Patsy the worst welsh curses she knew, whilst Patsy traced circles on her exposed shoulder. A few moments passed between them that confirmed they were both frustrated that love could not always be this easy, or this public. But wordlessly they agreed to push it to one side for the evening; neither of them wanting reality to taint this bubble of safety and openness that they had found beneath a London street.

After a final slow dance that Patsy had willed not to end, they had emerged reluctantly into a brisk spring night just in time to catch the half ten bus back to Poplar. They caught it only by leaping onto the back platform as the double decker began to pull away. Delia, slightly unsteady and in completely the wrong shoes, misjudged the gap and for a few terrifying moments ended up running behind the bus, grasping Patsy’s hand who was laughing so hard that she barely had the strength to pull her on board. The greying conductor gave them a disapproving look as he passed them their tickets. The two women clattered giggling up to the stairs to the thankfully empty top deck, so that they might watch the city go by through its rain-streaked windows.

It was with some surprise then that Patsy glanced across at Delia a few minutes later to see her brow furrowed and her lips pressed tightly together in thought.

‘Are you alright, Deels?’ Patsy murmured, giving the shorter woman a gentle nudge. Delia turned sharply to look at her, as though surprised to find her there at all.

‘I’m fine.’ Delia replied, unconvincingly. She gave Patsy a small smile that didn’t reach her eyes causing Patsy to tilt her head questioningly. ‘I’m fine Pats, it doesn’t matter.’

Patsy slid the scarf from her neck and pooled it in her lap before taking hold of Delia’s hand beneath its cover. There was no one else on the upper deck but Patsy’s covert instincts had kicked in the moment they had set off in the direction of home. She gave Delia’s hand a reassuring squeeze but asked nothing more, turning away to observe how the many lights of the riverside began to turn into the darker, narrower streets of the East End. Patsy watched the intermittent flash of Delia’s reflection in the window, her profile illuminated by the yellow light of the bus. She was staring into the middle distance with brow furrowed once more.

Soon the near-empty roads returned them to Poplar, and they alighted a stop earlier than required so that they might arrive home separately.

‘We’ll walk as far as Whittle Street will we? And I can stall a little while you go… Delia?’ Patsy stopped and turned, suddenly aware that Delia was several yards behind her. The young woman was stopped, hands in the pockets of her coat, eyeing the gutter pointedly as if looking anywhere but at Patsy. ‘Delia, whatever’s the matter?’

Delia shook her head slowly, not raising her gaze from the ground, and offered just three words.

‘I can’t, Pats.’

Patsy’s stomach gave a lurch of apprehension. Surely not, not after tonight? Delia wouldn’t be saying she couldn’t carry on after a night of dancing so blissfully in each other’s arms. Surely?

‘Delia?’ Patsy cast a wary glance up the street before hurrying to where the crestfallen brunette stood. She bent down slightly, trying to make eye contact beneath the curtain of dark fringe. Delia made no reply. ‘Darling, you’re worrying me. What can’t you do?’ She whispered.

After what felt like an age, Delia raised her head, her eyes shining. ‘I’ve been trying not to dwell on it all night Pats, but I can’t help it. What that woman said earlier about us, our way, about it not being illegal but to be careful.’

‘We knew that really didn’t we, Deels? We’re always… very careful.’ Patsy winced, knowing that her own self-imposed regulations on their being discreet and vigilant had caused hurt between them more than once. Neither of them had dared to tell soul about the true depth of their relationship.

‘There’s so much we can’t do, Pats, so much that we’re not allowed.’ Patsy cast another anxious glance up the empty street and took a step closer to Delia, placing a sympathetic hand on her arm as Delia continued. ‘We really could lose our jobs at any minute, for just being together. I don’t think I’d truly thought it possible till tonight, but they would fire us if they knew, wouldn’t they?’

‘There’s certainly nothing to say that they couldn’t do that.’ Patsy admitted, sadly.

‘We’d probably never work in nursing again. We’d be thrown out of Nonnatus too. We could lose everything.’ Delia lamented. ‘We can’t even tell our _friends_ about us. We have to go halfway across London just to dance together. I want a _life_ with you Patsy. I want a _family_. I want to marry you, more than anything, and yet I can’t have any of it. Because… just because it’s us.’ Delia’s voice caught in her throat and she shook her dark head again.

Patsy let her hand slide from Delia’s arm, the eight or so inches between them feeling like miles the moment she broke contact. ‘You could have a family, Delia, if that’s what you want.’ She said, very quietly.

‘I want a family with _you_ , you fool.’ Delia looked up into the taller woman’s face, her eyes full of sorrow in the streetlight. ‘And it’s impossible. God, I hate this all so much.’ Delia ran a hand through her hair in exasperation. ‘I’m sorry Patsy, I didn’t mean to…’

Delia’s words trailed off whilst Patsy took her turn to stare intently at the pavement. She took a steadying breath, trying to process all that had been said, and control the tremble in her throat that was threatening to become a sob. Tonight had been so close to perfect, it was easy to forget, for once, why their relationship was kept so secret. And yet Delia was right, there were so many things they couldn’t do, so many things that Patsy could not give her, no matter how hard she tried. Honesty, openness, security, a marriage, a family. Huge, important things, and a million smaller ones. She was brought suddenly back into focus by the slightly startling sensation of Delia stroking a single escaped tear from her cheek.

‘I’m sorry Patsy, I’m sorry I ranted, I didn’t mean to.’ Delia was murmuring, her Welsh lilt heightened with emotion. Patsy shook her head and attempted a smile, though the action threatened to spill the hot tears that were now brimming in her eyes. She wanted to do something to comfort Delia, but there was nothing she could do here in the street, and she did not trust her voice not to wobble if she tried to speak of anything so emotionally charged at this moment. She gently drew Delia’s hand from her cheek, restoring the public gap between them.

‘We best get back, Trixie will be thinking I’ve run off to join the foreign legion.’ Feigning humour at least kept her voice from wobbling. She crossed her arms and pulled her wool coat a little tighter. Delia nodded in acquiescence and silently they began the walk back to Nonnatus, the pavements shining with the evening’s rain. They were almost within sight of the house when Delia halted again.

‘Leave home separately, come home separately, and no one will be any the wiser.’ The younger woman repeated Patsy’s own words back to her. ‘You go in first, I’ll take a little walk for a minute.’

‘Are you sure?’ Patsy asked, not certain that she wanted anything more to do with her own rules tonight. ‘It’s rather cold Deels, we could just say we bumped into one another on the way home.’ But Delia shook her head.

‘I’ll only walk a little way, clear my head a small bit. The tobacconists looks open still, do you want anything?’

The tall nurse scanned Delia’s face, trying to decide whether to leave her alone was sensible, given the outburst of emotions that had passed just minutes ago, but Delia waved her away, with a ‘I’ll see you at home.’

Patsy watched her silhouette head up the street, her hands back in her pockets and her ponytail, now untidy from the fiddling of anxious hands, swinging in the moonlight. Delia’s heels rang out on the cobbles as Patsy turned towards the convent, readying herself to paste a cheery smile over her troubled heart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know what you think!


	6. Trixie Franklin, Practically A Nun

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Trixie is manning the telephone in Nonnatus when the others arrive home from their respective dates...
> 
> TW: Talk of the assaults that feature in episode 5.6 Nothing graphic, but it will come up again in a later chapter so I will forewarn you of that too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> These next few chapters overlap somewhat so let me know if thats too confusing.

Cigarette, coffee, Women’s Own magazine. Cigarette, tea, cock ear for the telephone. Straighten log book, make yet more tea, peruse the latest copy of Vogue. Clean the blackboard, clean the telephone, fend off Nurse Crane’s disapproving looks as one lights up again out of pure boredom. Use the log book pen to add tiny nurses caps and capes to the models in Women’s Own. Pause to consider whether one could possibly even drink another hot beverage or if one would then _become_ a hot beverage… After a busy day shift, it had been a very quiet evening on call for Nurse Franklin.

It was gone eleven when at last she heard the sound of keys rattling in the front door. Most of Nonnatus’s residents had long since retired to their rooms for the evening, whilst the rest of the younger nurses were out for various social engagements. Trixie appeared at the top of the stairs, empty mug in hand, to see Patsy let herself into the hallway below. She had only been without her roommate for a week whilst they waited for Fred to replace the Patsy’s bedframe, but after enjoying the first few nights of extra space and privacy, Trixie found herself missing the redhead’s presence. Even if her own evening consisted of little more excitement than the choice between Horlicks or Bournvita, at least with Patsy about she could live a little vicariously through her rather more interesting evening plans.

‘And what time do you call this, Nurse Mount?’ Called Trixie. Patsy jumped, placing a steadying hand to her chest when she spotted Trixie coming down the stairs.

‘Goodness Trix, you didn’t half startle me.’ The redhead replied, shrugging off her coat in relief. ‘You had quite the air of Sister Julienne for a moment.’

‘Well it’s true that I am practically a nun now.’ Trixie lamented, leaning against the dark wood of the banister.

Patsy raised a pencilled eyebrow at Trixie’s silk pyjamas. ‘You don’t _look_ much like a nun.’

The blonde grinned mischievously, thankful for some distraction at last. ‘How was your evening?’

‘It was - fine, thank you.’ Patsy said simply, shrugging her coat from her shoulders. ‘Did you have any calls?’

‘Not a peep. I almost wished someone would go into labour, just for a little _excitement_.’

Patsy’s smile was a little unfocused, her hands just a tad unsteady as she hung up her coat on the stand and smoothed her windswept hair. Trixie smiled knowingly, it had been a long time since she had passed a leisurely evening with a drink, just talking with friends with a glass in hand to lubricate the conversation. But she had lost that luxury now, for she knew that for her sadly it would never be just one glass. She waggled her mug invitingly.

‘Can I interest you in something hot and malty as a nightcap? You can tell me all about these dreadful nurses that you like more than me. Please tell me they’re all frightfully boring and have terrible taste in shoes.’

‘How could anyone possibly compare to you, Trixie.’ Patsy smiled, a little more steadily this time. ‘I’m sorry, but I’m afraid I’m awfully tired, I think I’m ready for bed as it is.’

‘See, you barely have any time for me at all!’ Trixie teased, keeping the disappointment from her voice. She had hoped for at least a scrap of gossip to reward her uneventful and very well-behaved evening, but it seemed Patsy was not in the mood for talking after all. Her nursing school friends had evidently worn her out for the night and Trixie let her weary friend go, watching her slumped shoulders as she hastened up the wide stairs to her temporary lodgings across the hall.

 _Horlicks for one then, Franklin_ , she thought to herself, slipping into the silent corridor. Though it was mostly hard wood panelling and tiled floors, Nonnatus house seemed to absorb sound like a confessional box absorbs secrets. Trixie padded along to the kitchen, crossing the patches of moonlight that pooled beneath the high, narrow windows. She knew that at that moment the house contained no less than half a dozen of the people who meant most to her and yet it was as silent as if she were quite alone.

She had spent the early evening working with Mary Cynthia to save the life of a teenage mother, whose own mother had attempted to deliver the baby unaided, trying to avoid scandal but risking both young lives in the process. Once upon a time the two nurses would have come back to the house together to collapse side by side onto the nearest bed and bicker about who would rise again to make coffee. But Cynthia was a Sister now, and had left the after the ambulance had departed to offer spiritual support to another young couple in need. Trixie was absent mindedly stirring malt power into hot milk when she heard the distant rattle of the front door again. Hastily she dropped the teaspoon into the sink and trotted back to the front hall to see Barbara framed in the doorway, the figure of Tom Hereward just visible on the step. Trixie paused beneath the stairs, as the pair grasped hands and murmured earnest farewells.

‘Good evening, Barbara. Good evening Tom.’ She said brightly, alerting them to her presence. The two broke apart as she carefully arranged her features into a warm smile. She loved Barbara dearly and was glad she had found romance, and it had been a more than a year since she and Tom had said their own poignant farewell. Yet still the last sparks of sadness prickled behind her eyes when she saw the two together.

‘Good evening, Trixie. And Goodnight, Barbara.’ Tom replied sombrely, nodding to each of them in turn, before stepping back from the doorway, unsmiling. ‘Keep safe.’

Barbara closed the door softly behind him as his footsteps fell away into the night.

‘Door to door escort across the square, how very gentlemanly our Reverend Hereward is.’ Trixie smiled. ‘Did you have a nice time?’

‘Yes.’ Barbara replied, sounding uncertain.

‘You don’t sound very sure?’ Trixie tilted her head to one side, taking in the anxious wringing of the young midwife’s hands. ‘Barbara, are you quite alright?’

‘We bumped into Sergeant Noakes on the way home.’ It wasn’t an answer, but Trixie gave a polite smile, trying not to pry in case it was a Tom-related upset. She wasn’t quite sure she was ready to be that sort of friend just yet.

‘How lovely, is he well?’ She enquired, but the brunette shook her head, her own expression troubled.

‘It wasn’t a social stop, the thing is…’ Barbara’s voice was low as she stepped forward, her purse clutched tightly in both hands. ‘Tom and I came across a – a working girl who had been attacked horribly, a few nights ago.’

‘Heavens, Barbara, how awful! You never said?’

‘I didn’t like to, she was soliciting so she would have been in trouble if we had reported it properly. I had a quiet word with Sergeant Noakes but he said there wasn’t much we could do unless she came forward, risking a huge fine of course. But now…’

Trixie lowered her mug onto the hall table and gently took Barbara’s purse and placed it there too, leading her silently to take a seat on the stairs as the young woman continued.

‘When we saw him on the way back from dinner just now he told us it looks as though the same man has attacked another woman, one of our new mothers, just last night.’ Barbara’s eyes were wide with concern. ‘She had her _baby_ with her.’

‘One of our mothers? Who?’ Trixie demanded, mentally rifling through the list of recent births.

Barbara shook her head. ‘He didn’t say, until it’s investigated I don’t think he can tell us. But he’s quite certain is has to be the _same_ person who attacked both women, if not more.’

‘How can they be sure it’s not two separate incidents? I’m sure the working girls of Poplar get treated very poorly by their customers, but a woman with a _baby_ , gracious, that is quite another matter.’ Trixie found herself whispering as they sat hunched on the bottom steps. Barbara shook her head again, seemingly unable to find the words.

‘Trixie, it’s horrendous. The attacker, whoever he is, is _biting_ the women he attacks. Both have great big marks on their necks and shoulders.’

Trixie was aghast, raising a manicured hand to cover her mouth in shock. ‘He’s _biting_ them? Like an animal?’

Suddenly a voice came from the top of the stairs and the landing light was thrown on. ‘Hello?’ Trixie felt her furrowed brow suddenly lift in surprise as the two of them looked up.  It was Patsy, stood at the top of the stairs in her stocking-feet, toothbrush in hand, and clearly halfway to the bathroom.

‘What are the two of you doing whispering in the dark?’ Patsy asked, giving them a bemused look.

‘Oh Patsy, it’s awful,’ started Trixie. ‘Barbara’s just told me the most horrible thing, she saw Sergeant Noakes and, well no Barbara and Tom saw – a few nights ago…’ Trixie felt her explanation grow muddled with the shock and Barbara laid a gentle hand over her own.

‘Someone has been attacking the women of Poplar,’ Barbara explained steadily. ‘Very horribly, Patsy. Including one of our new mothers.’

‘Good lord.’ The bemused half-smile faded from Patsy’s face. ‘Good lord. Is everyone home now?’

Trixie pursed her lips and shook her head as the gravity of Barbara’s news sank in.

‘Everyone except Delia.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As ever, thanks for reading! Any feedback appreciated.
> 
> I'm off to the deepest darkest countryside for a few days so next update will be... Sometime!


	7. Patsy Mount and the Holey Toes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Well I'm back from the wilderness. Yet the same can't be said for everyone....

As if holding pose for a photograph, the three of them had frozen on the stairs. Patsy’s eyes had travelled slowly to the door as fear trickled into her veins like cold saline. Barbara looked up at Patsy, wondering if she was thinking as she was of running across the square to Tom Hereward’s for help. Trixie looked slowly from one to the other as her own words hung smoke-like in the air between them.

‘ _Everyone except Delia_.’

Patsy’s mind raced like a frantic heartbeat, though her feet felt rooted immovably to the carpet. She should go, now, run through the front door and find Delia before anyone else could. But the others would not let her go out alone, they would make her wait here for until reinforcements could accompany them. But that might be too late. She could leave through the back door, through the kitchen? But what would she tell the others to keep them here, and explain her absence?

‘Wait here.’ She had no other words, despite everything Patience Mount had put in place to protect their relationship, she couldn’t stop to care about excuses or explanations now. Like a machine leaping suddenly to life she bolted down the stairs between Trixie and Barbara, who jumped out of her way with faces pale. Patsy was almost through the doorway to the hall when she doubled back, a hand gripping the wooden banister. ‘What was that you were saying, about animals biting?’

Trixie’s lips were pinched tightly together whilst Barbara’s opened and closed, saying nothing. What could she say, that wouldn’t simply terrify them all more? It was all the response Patsy needed, she turned and ran down the dark corridor to the kitchen. Skidding on the lino she hastened across the room and wrenched open the back door, the cold air making her gasp in her thin blouse.

In three paces she was across the yard, three more and she was out into the dark side street. She could feel the brambles and the pavement tear at her feet as she went. Patsy looked down to realise she had not stopped to find shoes; her nylons were torn open around her toes and her grazed ankles. She looked up, her eyes searching the square, her blood pumping and frantic breath clouding in the night air around her, yet she found herself rooted to the ground once more. She hadn’t a clue where to go, she didn’t have a clue where Delia was. The cobbled road she had left her on – _stupidly_ left her on – ran parallel to the convent and she could have turned off it at any point, into the maze of streets or onwards as far as the church or even the dockyard. Patsy span barefoot, looking all about her in panic and indecision as adrenaline and fear pumped through her, but neither it nor she knew where to go.

* * *

 

Trixie pulled her head back inside and pushed the front door almost closed. The square in which Nonnatus stood was silent, the chill of the night raising goosebumps across the back of her neck as she turned to look at Barbara, her face tense.

‘What are we going to do?’ Whispered Barbara, still perched on the stairs. With a sensible alice band across her head and anxious hands fiddling at the hem of her dress she suddenly looked not like capable nurse Gilbert, but more like a worried child. Trixie gave a small nod of her head and resolved to take charge. If their unspoken worries were correct, there was no time to lose.

‘I think we need to wake Sister Julienne.’ She said, firmly.

‘Whatever for?’ Came a voice behind her. Barbara jumped, eyes wide, as the door was pushed open and the entrant’s shadow fell across them both. Trixie turned and let out a yelp of shock.

‘Delia!’

Delia, cheeks pink from the cold and cradling a small bunch of carnations, looked in confusion from one nurse to the other. Barbara looked like she’d seen a ghost whilst Trixie was fixing her with possibly the most terrifying smile she’d ever seen.

‘I mean, _Delia!_ How lovely to see you!’

Harried footsteps were heard in the hallway a moment before Patsy came thundering into the room, her red hair flying from its grips. She too gasped and came to a skidding halt as she caught sight of the figure in the doorway, her mouth gaping several times before she too managed a breathless ‘ _Delia!’_

‘Hello?’ Said the brunette, stepping into the hall, her expression bemused. ‘I do live here, don’t I?’

‘Yes!’ Hastened Trixie, eyeballing Barbara who broke into an uncertain smile. ‘You do, and we’re just so happy you’re home, that we’re all home, together!’ She held out her hands to hold the flowers so Delia could remove her coat and hang it on the stand. Whilst the petite nurses’ back was turned she gave Patsy a look that said in no uncertain terms _Do. Not. Scare. Her._

Patsy fought to regain control over her breathing and salvage some measure of composure. Delia was giving her a concerned look of her own, whilst Trixie bustled distractingly between them.

‘Would you care for a night cap Delia?’ The blonde was chirping, ‘By which I mean hot milk and a shot of malt powder.’

‘Oh, ah, I suppose…’ Delia replied uncertainly, trying to catch Patsy’s eye. ‘Although I’m quite-‘

‘Fabulous! I hope _you’ll_ provide me with some gossip at least. These two were just off to bed.’ Trixie thrust Barbara’s purse at her, not trusting the brunette to keep up any charade for long.

Patsy stepped aside as Trixie led an uncertain Delia down the corridor, the bunch of unexplained carnations tucked under her arm. The Welshwoman looked thoroughly baffled by the entire proceeding as she glanced back as Patsy. The redhead just waved her toothbrush apologetically, unable to think of anything to say that wasn’t ‘thank god you are safe, my love’, or any action that wasn’t holding Delia in her arms and kissing her fiercely in relief.

Delia wanted nothing more than to follow Patsy upstairs and undo all of the things she had said earlier, but Trixie was determined to take her into the kitchen for some reason, and reluctantly Delia let her. She pulled two mugs and a pan for the milk from the cupboards whilst Trixie cradled the flowers. It certainly looked like her words had taken their toll, all of her talk of all the things they couldn’t have, and after they had been having such a lovely night. What was Delia thinking? Patsy hadn’t even been able to crack a smile since she walked through the door.

‘Lovely. Although they do smell rather of tobacco. Have you been in a pub?’ The blonde asked, passing the flowers back. Delia fumbled distractedly for her words and Trixie smiled at the brain-addling effect that first dates could have. Together they heated milk and stirred in spoonfuls of Horlicks. Delia leant against the counter with her mug, hoping she might now be able to make her escape upstairs.

‘Come and sit with me a moment, I’m positively starved for anything interesting at all. How was your _date_?’ Trixie pulled out a chair.

‘Have you not had a thrilling evening in, Trixie?’ Delia asked, resignedly pulling out the one opposite. Trixie noted the change of subject and cast her a dark look.

‘Hardly. I almost wish I’d taken up Nurse Crane’s offer of playing cards. Although I stand by my rejecting Sister Winifred’s invitation to wind wool with her and Sister Monica Joan…’ She took a sip of her hot drink. ‘The spinster life doesn’t suit me, Delia.’

The Welshwoman chuckled and shook her head. ‘You’re not a spinster, Trixie.’

‘Easy for you to say, with some nice fellow bringing you flowers. Even if they do smell a bit odd.’

Delia held the bunch to her nose anxiously. ‘They don’t, do they?’

Trixie gave her a wink over her steaming mug. ‘They’re perfectly lovely. I’m taking all credit of course, clearly my earrings charmed this gentleman caller right into the florists.’

‘Something like that.’ Delia replied with a coy smile, giving nothing away. They chatted companionably about nothing in particular until Trixie was satisfied that the others would be safely in their rooms, and unlikely to cause any undue alarm to their youngest lodger. She could learn of the attacks in the morning with the rest of the household, she did not need to know she had just been on the street alone with a biting madman on the loose. They drained their cups and headed back to the staircase, turning off each light as they went.

‘Am I the last in, will I lock the door?’ Delia asked softly.

‘You must be, I didn’t hear Sister Mary Cynthia come in but I can’t imagine she’s still out doing good deeds at – goodness, gone midnight. We best get to bed before one of the Sisters _does_ appear…’

Delia paused to slip off her heels and the two of them padded up the stairs as quietly as they could, Trixie leading the way. They paused outside their bedrooms and waved a silent goodnight, the resulting rustle of Delia’s bouquet causing them both to pull apprehensive faces and disappear hastily before giggles started or their neighbours stirred.

‘You had better give me full details tomorrow!’ Trixie had whispered into the gloom as Delia eased her door closed.

Trixie closed the door to her usually shared room feeling unsatisfied. It seemed that until the rather worrying news, everyone had been having a rather nice night except her, though Delia was clearly as evasive as Patsy when it came to providing juicy details. Perhaps it was time to court once more, generate some details of her own. She had been pushing the subject from her mind for months, throwing herself into her work and friendships and Keep Fit classes instead. The restarting of the whole courting cycle had seemed too daunting, but Tom had certainly moved on, there was no reason she shouldn’t do the same. Maybe it was time to put her heart a little on the line once again, she mused taking up her magazine. Besides, perusing Italian Vogue on one's own of an evening just doesn’t hold quite the glamour it should once you've swapped your Campari spritz for a chipped mug of Horlick’s. She needed _some_ excitement.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An alternative title for this chapter (and how it is saved on my computer) is 'DELIA BUSBY AND THE BITEY fleas man poplar is a hard place to keep clean' but it was too long for the drop down menu.
> 
> Also I tried to find a better way of saying 'goosebumps' but all the thesaurus would give me was 'skin erection' :|
> 
> Writing is hard. No pun intended.


	8. Delia Busby Has Quite Big Talks For a Thursday

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just gobsmacked by comments and general response to this so far. Thank you so much for your brilliant feedback and humour and kindness, you are filling the CTM shaped hole in my life in the long wait for season 7.  
> 

It was well past midnight when Delia finally collapsed onto her bedroom chair, dropping the heels she had been carrying to the floor and pulling grips and fastenings from her hair with weary arms. The dancing and the journey had left her tired, but the things she had said on the way home weighed her down into her chair in an entirely different way.

Patsy and Delia were adept at using even small moments of happiness to carry them through times of separation. Clasping hands in the back row of a matinee screening could make an entire weekend. An afternoon walking arm in arm through a London park on a cold day could keep them buoyant through a fortnight of opposite schedules. An evening like tonight, of dancing and uninhibited affection in a place of safety, should have lasted them _weeks_. For one evening it had been all they wanted in the world. And yet she had shattered its powers by bringing up all the things they could not have. Delia flung the handful of hair-things onto the dressing table, shaking her head in frustration and guilt.

‘Yes, well done Busby…’ She muttered as half of the grips rebounded off the mirror and fell scattered to the floor. She left them there, leaning back in the chair and giving her reflection a disapproving glower. Her dark hair hung about her shoulders now, kinked and curled where the grips had been. All the effort to dress up, pointless now, overshadowed by the doubt and frustrations she had brought to the evening. She slipped the cardigan from her shoulders; warm from her own body, it carried Patsy’s perfume as she held the soft wool to her face. She thought of slipping into the redhead’s bedroom on the pretence of returning it, but she wasn’t sure Patsy would want to see her tonight. Or tomorrow. She had looked so sad on the street, so flustered when she came through the door, and hadn’t said a word even as Delia had reluctantly left again with Trixie. Like Delia, she had probably been planning on returning home on a high from their excursion, the giddy joy of it ready to fuel her through the coming weeks. But her troubled expression confirmed that any hope of that had been ruined. Delia sighed into the soft material, but was startled by the quiet metallic sound of a turning doorknob. Getting to her feet Delia started towards the door, tucking the cardigan hastily behind her back.

‘Hello.’ The redhead ventured, slipping a little hesistantly into the room. ‘I know it’s late, but I didn’t want to leave things as they were.’

‘Patsy…’ Delia sighed and they came together in a grateful embrace, Delia taking firm hold of the Patsy's flannel nightshirt as she murmured an apology into a warm shoulder.‘I’m so sorry.’

‘Sorry?’ Patsy pulled back, holding the shorter woman gently by the shoulders. ‘What on earth are you sorry for?’ Her expression was concerned, but not angry, Delia was relieved to notice, as apologies continued to tumble from her lips.

‘For all I said, I ruined our evening and it had been so lovely. I’m so sorry Pats, I don’t know what I was thinking.’ Delia shook her dark head, but Patsy gave her a half smile as she pulled her back into a tight hug.

‘Oh Deels, don’t worry about that. I’m just glad you’re home now.’ She kissed the top of the shorter woman’s head, and added with a sigh, ‘I dare say you only voiced what we have both felt at times.’

They stood in firm embrace for several long moments, savouring the contact. Delia found herself wishing that they were stood in the midst of that crowd once more, with music playing, instead of here on the thin carpet of her dimly lit bedroom.

‘Hadn’t you better go back?’ Delia murmured reluctantly. ‘You don’t usually visit this late.’

‘ _That_ ,’ Patsy smiled, ‘is because usually I share a bedroom with the lovely but terribly nosey Trixie Franklin. But since my bed is beyond repair I’m in Mary Cynthia’s room, whilst _she_ has moved in with Sister Winifred, lest the sisters should mix too much with us common nurses.’

‘Crumbs, it’s like musical chairs in this nunnery.’ Grinned Delia.

Patsy chuckled. ‘Short story is, I won’t be missed. And I wanted to make sure you were alright.’ She hestitated then, remembering Trixie’s warning look. The blonde had a point, even without being aware of the emotional evening they had already had, there was no need to add any more worry tonight.

‘Come and sit, if you’re staying a while?’ Delia proffered. ‘Can I get you a nightcap? A real one mind. We don’t stock Horlick’s in Casa Delia.’

‘Miss Busby, what a terrible influence you are.’ Whispered Patsy with a conspiratorial wink.

The tension between them broken, each fell into a familiar series of actions. Delia picked carefully through the bottom of her wardrobe to retrieve a secluded bottle or two, whilst Patsy took a battered book from the dressing table and wedged it, quietly but firmly, under the door by way of a doorstop. It was a routine they had perfected whilst living in the nurses home dorms in the early days of their friendship. In a trick first learnt by Patsy at boarding school, each had selected a book that would become half destroyed in the effort to ensure a little privacy. As their friendship had evolved into more, the books had become so regularly used that even to glance at their destroyed covers now could make each blush with the memory of those first, fervent months.

The ‘door book’ however did nothing to block out Nonnatus’ many drafts which came from just about any window or doorframe depending on which way the wind blew. With her nightshirt only coming to her knees, Patsy felt the chill against her bare legs and she slipped them under Delia’s bedspread as the brunette returned with two glasses of gin and slimline.

‘Make yourself at home.’ She tutted quietly, as she perched on the edge of the covers. Patsy rolled her eyes and swung her legs to the other side of the bed to make room. With a grin Delia shuffled onto the bed as much as she could manage, though the pencil skirt was a little restricting. They clinked glasses gently as they could and sipped their drinks for a few moments before Delia broke the silence, albeit with a whisper.

‘I really am sorry about tonight Pats.’ She raised a silencing hand as Patsy opened her mouth to protest. ‘No, I am. I know that to go to Gateways at all took a lot for you, and I am so grateful that you made that compromise for me. I just want you to know that I really was having the loveliest evening, before I opened my big mouth.’

Patsy tilted her head to one side with a sigh. ‘We have to keep so much of ourselves bottled up Deels, please don’t keep your worries bottled up from me too. If it’s something that’s on your mind, I want to know… even if it is difficult to hear.’

She broke eye contact as she trailed off, her gaze fixed pointedly on her drink as she ran a pale finger around its rim. Delia pressed her lips together, she could see the walls of Nurse Mount begin to raise themselves once more.

‘What I said about families…’ She started, tentatively.

‘If it’s something you want Delia-’

‘What I want is irrelevant, really. I was upset because… because it’s _impossible_. So much is impossible for us. We can never be parents. Aside from the obvious – biological impossibilities…’ She trailed off, gesturing to each of them with a raised eyebrow, hoping for a smile. Patsy appeared to be intent on studying the rim of her glass. Delia sighed, her humour dissipating under the weight of her thoughts. ‘No one would ever let two women adopt like the Turners have. I suppose one could adopt as a single person, but then what? If you were ever found out by the neighbours or the school the child would be taken away. You’d have to hide your relationship from your own child. And that’s not a family. It's all so impossible.’

‘It’s only impossible with me.’ Patsy said, very quietly. Delia placed a gentle but firm finger beneath Patsy’s chin, raising it so that she would meet her gaze. Two pairs of glistening blue eyes looked into one another, concern and certainty portrayed in equal parts.

‘I only want it if it’s with you, Pats.’ Delia said firmly, her accent making itself present with emotion. ‘Believe me when I say that.’ Patsy nodded and Delia’s touch softened to stroke her cheek, and push a lock of red hair behind her ear. Patsy smiled then, and leaned in place a gentle kiss on the brunette’s cheek. She felt the slight wetness of tears upon the fair skin, and placed a second kiss next to the first for good measure.

‘I never considered it.’ She said, somewhat abruptly. Delia gave her a confused look, and Patsy took a steadying sip of gin before continuing. ‘A family. I was quite resigned to being alone for the rest of my life. I would have work and I would have friends, but I never imagined a family. I had one once, and it caused so much pain, I had no intention of ever making one myself.’

It was Delia’s turn to look uncertain, such expansions were so unusual from Patsy that she didn’t know whether to offer comfort or not. She felt almost as though she should not make any sudden movements, lest this new, verbalising Pats might startle and bolt.

‘I never thought I would have a… a _you_ , Delia. You are more than I ever expected, more than I ever dreamt I would have.’

‘Gosh,’ smiled Delia with a sniff, ‘these are quite big talks for a Thursday evening.’

They each gratefully drained their drinks before setting the empty glasses on the bedside table. Patsy took Delia’s hands in her own on top of the bedspread running her thumbs over the bare nails, the ringless fingers.

‘You looked so lovely tonight.’ Delia said softly, feeling the alcohol relax her as she watched Patsy trace circles across her knuckles. Her own hands always seemed stubby in comparison to Patsy’s long, pianist fingers. Delia’s hands had been weathered by years of manual work, hospital nursing and constant antiseptic handrub, and yet something in Patsy’s touch made anything cradled within it seem somehow more beautiful.

‘ _You_ looked lovely.’ Patsy replied. ‘I’m quite certain I was the envy of the whole room.’

Delia wrinkled her nose at the compliment. ‘Charmer.’

‘I do understand where your worries came from tonight.’ Patsy continued. ‘I do think about these things too, because it’s not just the big things, it’s lots of small things as well. I don’t have a _word_ for you.’

Delia raised a querying eyebrow, not following. Patsy tilted her head, and ran her thumbs across the back of Delia’s hands once again, considering how to explain.

‘If you were a man you’d be a – a gentleman caller, or a boyfriend.’

‘A fiancée, if I had my way.’ Delia murmured, causing them both to blush.

‘As it is, as we are, I find myself without a word to describe you. Not that I have anyone to describe you too.’ Patsy admitted. ‘Even if I had a word I’d never have cause to use it.’

‘You can use it with me.’

‘Hello, this is my…. Delia.’ Patsy threw up her arms in dramatic resignation as Delia stifled a laugh. ‘Well then! What would you call it? How would you describe me?’

Delia caught hold of her hands again and pulled her close with an easy smile.

‘Patience Mount, you are the entire contents of my heart.’

Patsy pouted, their lips a tantalising inch apart.

‘I don’t think they make a greetings card for that.’

‘I’ll make you one.’

They closed the gap, as a distant bell stuck twice. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The 'door book' is shamelessly stolen from 'Convergence' by Think_Busby_Think. It's brilliant and as far as I'm concerned it's the canon Pupcake origin story. (I hope you don't mind me referencing it here.)


	9. Trixie Franklin and Noise in the Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Trixie Franklin is awoken by a noise from within Nonnatus. Mice? Intruder? Elderly nun on a cake rampage?

As the last lamps were extinguished, night settled at last over Nonnatus house. Till now Barbara had lain determinedly awake (but perfectly still, knowing that even a sleeping Phyllis Crane could sense fidgeting). The evening had been tainted with worry, and she had waited till the last familiar footsteps had left the landing, announcing their safe ensconcement in bed, before she gave over to her heavy lids and settled into well-earned slumber.

Sleep did not come so easily to all of the house’s residents. Although the night outside was still, Trixie Franklin’s mind was restless. She had paced the room and smoked three cigarettes to the respectively upbeat and soothing tones of Fury and then Sinatra. She had changed her pyjamas twice (once into a peach slip, then back into oriental green satin) and flipped with unusual disinterest through Vogue. Her blue eyes roamed the pages without taking in a detail, and as her bedside clock neared one she had switched off the light and lain supine beneath the covers, waiting impatiently for sleep.

It must have come, though it did not feel like it for she awoke an hour later, convinced she had heard voices outside of her fitful dreams. Uncertain, Trixie rolled over to see if any such noise had woken Patsy too. For a moment she blinked in sleepy confusion, the space in which her roommate’s bed usually stood seemed strange and imposing in its emptiness. Of course, she was alone. Fred had taken the broken frame for firewood, and only the unweathered square of rug served to tell there had ever been anyone here at all. 

The glowing face of the alarm clock showed it was gone two o’clock. Trixie rolled onto her back but her eyes were not heavy now. What had woken her? The house was silent but she was most definitely awake again. She knew that Delia had returned safely, and that she herself had managed to shield her from any undue panic curtesy of Barbara or Patsy. The day had been long, and the inverted organs of Diane Hills shocking, but they had saved her, they had righted all that was wrong, and the house was peaceful now. So why did something feel so amiss, so unsettled?

With a huff Trixie swung her slim legs out from under the covers, the bare feet flinching at the cool floorboards till she hooked her slippers from beneath the bed. She crossed the dark room carefully to the chest of drawers where a glass carafe of water stood. There, beneath the scuff of slipper sole on polished wood, was that a voice? Trixie cocked her blonde head in the dark and listened, ears practically straining in the silence, her figure framed only by the light of the streetlamps outside, the orange glow fractured into tiny shards by the lace curtain. The noise was gone, if it had been there at all. She glanced down at the pair of glass tumblers and carefully picked one up, rolling it thoughtfully against her palm. Perhaps she ought to refill this from the bathroom tap, just to be sure…

With practised ease, Trixie Franklin tiptoed across the room and into the gloom of the hall, avoiding all creaky floorboards, (as well as the particular hump in the carpet that always caught Patsy out when sneaking for a midnight snack, or wherever one disappears to in the early hours). Though to be out of bed at these hours was not something any midwife was unacquainted with, Trixie felt a small rush of childlike excitement. She froze, glass in hand, holding her breath and her balance, to listen again. It was there, a sigh, yet not one filled with exasperation or exhaustion, but something else. It came again, and Trixie followed it, crossing the hallway to listen at a closed door. If this turned out to be Sister Monica Joan snoring she would be severely disappointed, but no, it was the next door that the sound came from again. She inched along the wall, the floorboards blissfully silent beneath her feet, to pause at Delia’s door.

The smallest sigh could be heard from within; an exhalation of breath, rhythmic, high and urgent. Trixie’s mouth drifted open as the evening rewound in her mind’s eye. Delia avoiding questions and eager to leave the kitchen table, Delia cradling a bunch of tobacco-scented carnations, Delia arriving home flustered with the flush of emotion in her cheeks. Trixie felt her grip tighten as the realisation set in. It couldn’t be.

Delia Busby had snuck a man into her bedroom. Delia had snuck a man into _Nonnatus_.

Trixie took a hasty step back from the door, shock and embarrassment colouring her face in the darkness. She _had_ heard voices then, it must have been Delia bringing the man upstairs, letting him into her room. Her room in a house she shared with other women and several religious Sisters, none of whom had consented to sharing their quarters with an unknown stranger. She knew the Welsh nurse had a touch of the rebellious about her, it was something Trixie had admired, but this… The blonde glanced up and down the hallway, unsure of what to do. If only Patsy hadn’t moved out. Trixie looked again to Delia’s door, the room beyond it silent now. To hell with it, Delia was Patsy’s friend, she could decide what to do.

Trixie padded carefully up the hall to Patsy’s temporary lodging, her pale knuckles raised to knock before she caught herself. The last thing she wanted was to wake the whole house up, and hadn’t Patsy been sharing with Mary Cynthia? Or had Cynthia moved across into Sister Winifreds? She couldn’t be sure, and she withdrew her hand before slowly reaching for the doorknob. It squeaked a little, and her lips pursed in concentration as the latch slowly drew back enough to push the door gently open. The room beyond was lit, like her own, by the permanent glow of the streetlamps outside. They cast a long rectangle of unnatural light across the twin beds, both neatly made, and both unmistakably empty. Trixie stepped forward into the small room, frowning in confusion, but the redhead was nowhere to be seen.

Trixie cast a glance back down the hall to Delia’s door, and felt her pursed lips shift into an ‘o’ of realisation. No, not realisation, it couldn’t be. Patsy out of bed and one unaccounted for visitor did not mean… Trixie steadied herself in doorway, manicured hands grasping for purchase as the possibility ran through her like cold water. She was dreaming surely, hallucinating, Patsy would not – Delia would not – would they? She would go back to her bed and close her eyes and when she awoke this would all be perfectly rationally explained. Trixie edged down the hallway once more, pulling the door to the empty bedroom closed behind her. She would go to bed, pull the covers over her head and wait for dawn to bring a reasonable explanation for all of this. She would not stop to listen at Delia’s room again.

Yet she found herself with an ear to the crack of the Welsh woman’s door once more. There were no voices, and no hurried breaths this time. Just the sound of blankets or bedclothes moving, of cotton against itself. Trixie could feel her legs tremble just a touch as she stood frozen in the hall, the satin of her pyjama legs quivering in the low light. Then, from within the room, Delia’s voice, soft and lilting.

‘ _You have to go now, love_.’

There was no answer but the sound of shifting bedsprings and, if Trixie could trust her ears, a kiss. She drew back quickly, in one step jumping lightly onto the solid threshold of her own doorway, and then quickly withdrawing through it. She pressed her forehead to the back of the door, offering up a prayer that it be someone, anyone but who she feared it might be, to emerge from that room. The stillness of her silent plea was broken by the creak of Delia’s door, lamplight spilling out onto the landing. In the gloom, hands clasped in a final embrace before the door drew closed again, casting the hall into darkness once more. From a crack in her door, Trixie Franklin watched a flash of milky skin and teal pyjama pad carefully down the hall.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A shorter chapter, and a tricky one, being almost entirely without dialogue.  
> Let me know if it flows/is readable, and do drop this work a kudos if you are enjoying it so far. I think there's about three chapters left for 1961.


	10. A Nun Undone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I know it's not fun but I cant not nun pun, Hun.
> 
> TW: Post-assault, bruising, shock. Nothing more severe than that.

The tall clock that stood guard outside Sister Julienne’s office had not even struck six when Trixie passed it, hair set and already in full uniform. She could hear the stirrings of morning prayers from the chapel, but for the most part Nonnatus house stood quiet, waiting for the familiar clink of breakfast plates to break the night’s silence and announce the beginning of a new day. For Trixie the previous day hadn’t yet ended, for though the night had passed without an emergency call-out, it had brought its own revelations, and sleep had eluded her till she gave up on it all together. She paused by the clock, unsure as to quite what she was going to do with more than an hour before breakfast and no labours requiring her presence. It struck her as quite fortuitous timing when the phone suddenly rang out behind her.

‘Midwife speaking?’ She answered, her voice just a little unsteady with the first utterance of the day. Familiar tones crackled from the heavy black receiver; Doctor Turner phoning to check that they were surviving well enough without him.

‘Really Doctor Turner, you are supposed to be on holiday.’ The blonde scolded, but settling down onto the hall chair she pulled the heavy log book open to humour him. She resisted informing him of his choice of locum being so deeply unpopular, instead reading out to him the last few days rota for district house calls, and the labours carefully noted on the log book’s wide pages, in the hope that the dry information might reassure him that everything was very much taken care of. As her manicured finger travelled down the list, it reached the last, incomplete, entry. _Thora_ _Hills_. Crossed out and corrected in Trixie’s own neat hand, _Diane Hills_.

‘Nurse Franklin?’

Trixie realised she had fallen silent, at a loss of how to explain, just as she had been at a loss of how to complete the entry the previous evening. Thora Hills, it had emerged, had not been pregnant at all, but had been feigning a pregnancy to cover up that of her teenage daughter. Trixie and Mary Cynthia had arrived expecting a geriatric mother, but instead found their supposed patient had tried to deliver the baby, and a retained placenta, alone and with dire consequences.

‘A uterine _inversion_?’ Doctor Turner repeated, his horror obvious down the phone line.

‘Yes. But it’s alright, Diane went to hospital and I followed to ensure that the medical situation would be fully understood. Cynthia – Sister Mary Cynthia stayed to tidy up a little and see to the boys. Diane is doing well, and Thora… Well, she must be strong for her family now.’ Trixie closed the book softly, and was struck with sudden puzzlement. ‘Doctor Turner, how are you ringing us? I thought you were camping?’

‘A uterine inversion,’ Dr Turner repeatedly darkly, ‘I should never have come away.’ And with that the line went dead.

Trixie bit her lip and slowly replaced the receiver back to its holster. She had meant to reassure him, not have him cancel his holiday, but the events of the previous evening had shaken her, had shaken them both. Mary Cynthia had remained at the house to clean up all evidence of the tragedy they had so narrowly avoided, but they had clasped shaking hands before Trixie had pedalled after the ambulance. Trixie had hoped to find her old friend waiting when she returned home, hoped that they might process the evening’s events together, but she had gone on to offer support elsewhere in the community, even more selfless now than she had ever been. Trixie had not seen her before bed, and so she was left with the memory of that brief touch to reassure her that they had managed it. That they had saved that life, and prevented much grief, together before they took their separate paths again.

A more recent memory, another two pairs of hands clasping in the early hours of that morning, pushed it way to the forefront of her mind, and Trixie pushed it forcefully away again. She heard the front door slam, and a flicker of blue drew her gaze to the hallway. The small frame beneath the habit was familiar, and yet the face was almost…

‘Cynthia?’ Trixie breathed, and dashed towards the limping figure, who flinched away as she drew close, the bruised face clenching in pain, almost unrecognisable. Mary Cynthia held the crumpled cotton of her wimple in her raised hands as she turned away, as if the sight of Trixie hurt her swollen eyes. The exposed skin was grazed and blue with cold.

‘Please, don’t touch me.’ Came a quiet plea.

Trixie felt her hand draw involuntarily to her mouth as she stifled what may have been a gasp or a sob. The petite frame of Mary Cynthia swayed before her, as if a touch might topple her altogether. Forcing the lump from her throat Trixie held out both hands in an open beckon.

‘Please come and sit down. Please, sweetie. I won’t touch you.’ It came out as little more than a whisper.

Slowly, cautiously, like tugboat guiding a storm-battered ship into harbour, Trixie led Cynthia to the dining table, pulling out a chair and resisting the urge to lower the petite nun into it. As she sank with a wince into the seat, Trixie noted the rip in the neck of her habit; it had been torn open along the shoulder seam, and the skin beneath it was dotted with bruised vessels in two curved arcs.

‘I won’t be a moment.’ She attempted before running from the room, but the words were mostly lost as her throat grew tight with emotion. Cynthia did not look up, her one open eye fixed on the far edge of the table, apparently unaware of Trixie’s words or her departure.

Heeled court shoes skidded around the tiled corner, Trixie hammered two fists on Sister Julienne’s office and two more on the chapel doors, before continuing to the bottom of the wide stairs. Gripping the banister where she had sat only last night, she called out, ‘Barbara! Patsy!’ but her voice came out odd and strangled. She tore away again, back into the hallway as Sister Julienne appeared, her face lined with concern.

‘Whatever is the matter, Nurse Franklin?’

‘ _Cynthia_.’ Trixie practically wailed, raising her hands in a helpless gesture to the dining room where the beaten woman sat, alone. ‘She’s only just come home - she’s been - _attacked_ …’

Trixie felt her words become misshapen as control of her mouth was lost to the sobs that rose within her. Sister Julienne’s look of concern became one of horror as the severity of the news sank in.

‘Attacked?’ Came Barbara’s voice from behind them, and Trixie fell into her dressing-gowned arms as the senior nun turned and hurried away. Her footsteps mingling with the solemn toll of the clock at it struck six.

* * *

The next few hours passed in near silence, Patsy, Delia and Nurse Crane waking to the news and hovering vigil-like on the periphery while the Sisters tended the best they could to their youngest kin. Mary Cynthia would allow no one to get close, her face contorting in pain and anger with every movement and every question. Trixie waited until Sisters Winifred and Monica Joan had retreated to the chapel before gingerly taking a seat at the dining table, as Sister Julienne tried again to seek some explanation. Three full teacups sat on the table, a milky sheen forming on their untouched surfaces. Trixie kept her eyes on them as Sister Julienne murmured soothingly to the hunched form of her oldest friend beside her.

‘I thought my habit would protect me…That was my arrogance, my fault.’ Cynthia muttered, bitterly.

‘You are not to even say the word _fault._ ’ The words were out of Trixie’s mouth before she could stop them. ‘I won’t allow it!’

Cynthia’s head dipped then, the crumpled mess of her nun’s cap revealing the dishevelled hair beneath it. Her narrow shoulders began to shake and Trixie bit her lip as sobs rose within her too. She should not have spoken so sternly, so possessively. Sister Julienne reached out a weathered hand but Mary Cynthia flinched violently away, her tiny frame throwing the heavy chair backwards onto the floor as she sprung to her feet, head bowed and grazed hands raised defensively.

‘I don’t want you to come near me. I don’t want anyone to touch me at all.’

* * *

Delia pulled the bedroom door gently closed behind her, leaving Patsy to soothe their teary friend as best she could. The two of them had sat, exchanging wordless and helpless glances, either side of the weeping blonde for an hour. They had wrapped blankets, arms and soothing words around her, but her sorrows did not seem to ease. Delia felt lost, not having been in Nonnatus long enough to have formed a strong bond with the petite nun who had returned home so hurt, but to see the grief on the faces of all the people that she cared about... The door closed, the small click of the latch sounding horribly loud, the whole house seemed to have descended into a vow of silence. The stillness was broken only by the sound of short, intermittent breaths from somewhere on the landing. Delia inched around the corner to see Sister Monica Joan, one hand to her chest, the other steadying herself on the chest of drawers that stood alone on the landing. The elderly nun was weeping.

Delia drew back, out of sight, unsure of how she might offer any real comfort to woman so much more experienced in life than herself. But the sobs had become a whimper and the young nurse could ignore them no longer. She turned the corner and stepped softly up to the nun, who met her gaze with eyes full of tears. Delia felt hot emotion spring to her own eyes anew, and they took one anothers hands, sharing in their sadness for several long moments before Sister Monica drew back, gripping the wooden cross around her neck with age-spotted hands. She made to walk towards her room, and Delia offered her a steadying arm, but the elderly nun patted it as she moved off, weeping all the while. Delia leant against the cool drawers and lifted up a prayer of thanks that she had sent Patsy home first, that she herself had only gone as far as the Tobacconists and back. But an immediate wave of guilt drowned her gratitude and she drew a shaking breath, her own tears falling freely from her cheeks.

* * *

The day rumbled silently on, and Trixie found herself stranded in its path like a lone creature marooned in the middle of a churning river. The other residents seem to drift and swirl around her, making phone calls and taking care of practicalities whilst she remained, dreamlike and useless in the centre of it all, and yet so far from the person who really was at the centre. Cynthia. The others jostled help, practically fighting one another off to deliver the fragile nun a cup of tea or a biscuit, yet Trixie could not bring herself, or not trust herself, to venture near. She hovered in the hallway as Patsy made call after call, cancelling the day’s home visits. She waved a listless goodbye as Delia set off to cover those essential calls that remained. She waited in vigil by the bathroom door as Monica Joan gently washed the blood and dirt from bruised skin. Sister Winifred passed her twice while she waited; once with a clean and pressed habit and tabard, and again with a ripped, bloodied bundle of blue cloth and stained white cotton. Sister Julienne telephoned to deliver news to the police, the motherhouse, and the sanatorium where Sister Evangelina was recovering. Barbara busied herself discussing with Dr Turner the precautionary vaccines that might be administered, and suggesting that she, rather than he, should deliver them. Phyllis marched like a metronome from room to room every half hour, supplying all with tea and collecting the mostly untouched cups from her last round. All the while Trixie hung back, unable to trust herself to speak, or to not throw her arms around Cynthia’s fragile form. At last, as they gathered around the table again, Sergeant Noakes convinced Cynthia to allow them to photograph her injuries.

‘I’ll drive you in my car.’ Stated Phyllis firmly. ‘The last thing she wants is to ride in that lunking great Wolseley of yours.’

Sergeant Noakes nodded apologetically, unsure of what was so offensive about his police car, but tucked his hat under his arm and departed with a gentle ‘I’ll see you there, Sister, Nurse.’

With that the room had emptied. Trixie remained rooted to her chair, another cup of Phyllis’s tea cooling in her hands, an unlit cigarette between middle and forefinger.

‘Penny for your thoughts, Nurse Franklin?’

Trixie looked up from her cup in surprise, her pensive state broken. She hadn’t even heard Fred come in, but he was stood at the foot of the table with a bicycle wheel in his hands and an inner tube slung over one shoulder.

‘Oh! Sorry, Fred, I was quite in my own world.’ He tilted his head questioningly and she felt her shoulders slump under his gaze. ‘I expect my thoughts are the same as everyone else’s today.’

Fred gave her a sympathetic smile. ‘Her bike was still at the docks. Don’t think it’s been messed wiv’ but thought I’d better give it the once over.’ He tucked the wheel under one overalled arm. ‘You was good pals, back when it was the two of you and Jenny Lee. Best of friends, I reckon.’

‘Yes. We were a happy little trio.’ Trixie sighed. ‘Fred, I’m afraid I’ve been as much use as a limp rag today.’

Fred shook his head but Trixie continued on, her voice a little husky after a day in almost silence.

‘I don’t quite know how to support her now. I can’t be a friend the same way, now that she’s…’

‘Part of the order.’ Fred nodded, sighed, then gave a shrug. ‘Offer her comfort whatever way you can, Nurse Franklin. Sister or not, we all need kindness.’

Trixie felt warm arms snake around her shoulders,. and the familiar smell of tobacco and perfume as Patsy bent behind her to rest her chin on the blonde’s shoulder

‘Quite right.’ The redhead affirmed. ‘Now Fred, where is this new bed of mine?’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was a difficult chapter to write. Let me know what you think, or if you spot any glaring typos. (Also if you think of anything better to name this chapter!!)
> 
> Hefty chapter coming next to make up for this somber one!


	11. Pills, Prayers and Pigtails

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Based around Series 5 Episode 7.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think there's been quite enough angst in the world for this week, so here's a gentle chapter to escape to for a little while (or at least that's what I'm using it for).

‘Well of course it’s a _challenge,_ Sister.’ Doctor Turner’s tone was calm, but he couldn’t help but rap his pen on his desk jotter impatiently. ‘Antibiotics were a challenge once.’

Sister Julienne could see the conflict within his manner, his excitement at the prospect of medical advancement made his exasperation at her own hesitancy difficult to conceal. The conflict within Sister Julienne was also not easily hidden.

‘Antibiotics were also a miracle.’ She commented, as Shelagh bent over the desk to pour tea. A welcome distraction, though Dr Turner was not distracted.

‘And you think the contraceptive pill isn’t?’ He pressed.

Shelagh proffered the biscuits into the tense space between the two medical veterans, hoping the presence of a garibaldi might diffuse the situation.

‘The contraceptive pill is a miracle with… moral implications.’ Sister Julienne responded carefully, declining the offered plate. ‘Might I have something plainer, Mrs Turner?’

The doctor sat back his seat and eyed the Senior Nun, who sat straight-backed and yet uncertain in the chair opposite his own. For several years their two institutions had forged ahead shoulder to shoulder, each always strengthened by the other. But it seemed the contraceptive pill was the issue to make plain how different their two missions really were. Shelagh, having stepped very literally from the vocation, and indeed from the very care of one medic to the other, realised that it was going to take more than a diplomatic biscuit to reconcile their differences.

* * *

Sister Julienne stood at her office window, half-watching a horse and cart in the square outside, the words of the doctor replaying in her head. New prescription birth control for any woman, married or otherwise, a magic pill, no age restriction, no referral. The chestnut steed and his cargo were forging a slow, wide arc across the square whilst milk bottles rattled in their crates. She watched as they seemed to pass through each pane of her lattice window, dividing the stages of their journey before they pushed off under the railway bridge back into the bustling streets and out of sight. Was she out of touch, she wondered, with the times, with her patient’s needs, with her faith? The horse’s clicking hooves faded away only to be replaced by a gentle knock and subsequent click of the latch.

The senior nun looked up from her pensive state to see her youngest Sister in faith hesitating in the doorway. Mary Cynthia’s bruises had faded steadily as the clouds were fading from the summer skies, and only a slight limp and a quieter temperament were left to speak of the events just a few weeks previous.

‘Sorry to disturb you Sister, tea is on the table?’ The young nun ventured.

‘I won’t join you today.’ Sister Julienne replied softly, glancing back to the window. ‘I feel I need to spend some quiet time in chapel. Some time to reflect.’

‘Of course. I’ll bring you some bread and butter later?’ Sister Mary Cynthia offered, and the senior nun nodded a silent acquiescence.

Sister Mary Cynthia inclined her head and withdrew, closing the door behind her. As her footsteps fell away Sister Julienne sank into her desk chair and drew out the book most central to all her reflections. She opened it’s gold-edged pages, and with it opened her heart and her ears for an answer.

* * *

Upstairs, Patsy had taken the afternoon and Trixie’s absence to get things organised for the changing season. Though she and Trixie technically shared the sturdy cedar wardrobe, Trixie's collection swelled with each change in fashion or weather, and so Patsy had to be rather economical with the space that remained. She had already removed her more wintry jackets and two-pieces, sliding them into bags scented with lavender to deter moths, before stowing them in two large hatboxes beneath her bed. These had contained her summer clothes from last year, most scarcely used owing to the damp British summer that it had been. It had been her first at Nonnatus, and she and Trixie had spent most of it in their room or under the cover of the front porch, watching the August downpours and listening to Elvis Presley. (Trixie had purchased _It's Now Or Never_ and had played it and its B side until even the record player complained of overuse.)

Patsy lifted each cotton shirt from its box and hung them about the bedroom to air, hooking hangers of every ledge and handle she could find, in the hope that the deep creases might ease themselves out by gravity alone. At the bottom of the box shone crisp red gingham. Patsy smiled as she lifted the dress from its wrappings; creased though it was, it carried with it warm memories of the square dance it had been bought for. Something fell from the folds of the dress and Patsy bent to catch it. A simple twist of red fabic, pressed flat from having spent several seasons in the box. Of course, Delia's neckerchief. Patsy smiled as she recalled Delia tying it onto her wrist at the end of the night like a corsage, ‘or a token, for a knight on shining bicycle’ Delia had murmured. Patsy smiled and held the crumpled scarf to her nose, it carried no perfume now, just the faint scent of dust. Still, the memories were crisp enough.

She shook the dress out and hung it up in the window, immediately grateful that it blocked out some of the sun that was blazing heat into the twin room. Patsy stowed the repacked box of winter clothes beneath the bed before scooping her hair into two loose bunches to keep it off her damp neck. Satisfied with the seasonal clothes swap, she stooped at the foot of the wardrobe to sort through her shoes. If any of her shoes were even in here, most of these seemed to be rather petite stilettos...

'Goodness me! Patience Mount making a mess, I must be hallucinating.'  Patsy pulled her head out of the wardrobe to see Delia propped up in the doorway, in her uniform and clearly just home from the hospital. She was smiling impishly as she took in the scene, a variety of checkered blouses strung up everywhere, and the redhead half in a cupboard. Her eye widened as they settled on the latter. 'Patience Mount in pigtails no less! Now I _know_ I'm seeing things.'

Patsy gave her a warning look. 'I'm being productive, don’t be a tease.'

'Me? Never.' Delia caught sight of the dress hanging up in the window. She smiled warmly at the memory before turning back to Patsy, who was sat back on her heels wiping dust from her trousered knees. 'Is Trixie about?’

‘No, it seems as though I’ve barely seen her the last few weeks. We are like passing ships.’

‘The curse of the nursing schedule.’ Nodded Delia. ‘You're on call tonight?'

'I am.' Affirmed the redhead with a sigh.

'Can I interest you in a coffee and a spin on the jukebox before you go on duty?' Delia suggested. Patsy raised a pencilled eyebrow in response.

'Does that mean I might actually get to pick a tune on said jukebox?' she asked.

'Well, maybe.' Delia winked. She watched as Patsy's amused expression shifted into one of uncertainty as she took in the unpacked clothes and shoes around her. Delia rolled her eyes and grinned. 'You can tidy up first, Pats, don’t fret. I need to get out of this uniform anyway.'

'Knock for me?' Patsy called as Delia disappeared into the hallway.

'Fifteen minutes, Nurse Mount!' Came the reply. But a moment later quick footsteps were heard in the corridor and Patsy glanced up to see Delia's grin reappear round the door frame. 'And you can keep the pigtails.'

* * *

‘Tell me about your day?’ Delia asked, sipping milky coffee in the Silver Buckle a little while later. Herself and Patsy were perched on high stools in their usual café, stockinged ankles wrapped round the chair legs, knees just touching. Patsy, in a floral dress and the promised pigtails, narrowed her eyes across her own cup.

‘Why is it always my day?’ She protested.

‘Because every day on male surgical is the same. Somebody has surgery, lots of patients complain, someone misses the bedpan….’ Delia trailed off as Patsy gave a comical look of disgust. ‘Exactly! Your days are always far more interesting, and you don’t have any grumpy surgeons to deal with. Plus Sister Winifred told me you had a patient on a _house boat_?’

‘Ahh, you’ve been snooping already…’ Patsy teased.

‘Not snooping, just taking an interest.’ Delia countered, slipping from her stool and crossing the small café to where the jukebox stood. Patsy admired her as she flicked through the panels of tracks. Freed from its work bun, her chestnut hair fell in loose curls from the high ponytail, the soft ends skimming the wide boat neck of her dress. Patsy grasped the seat as she realised she was sliding off it in her distraction. Satisfied in her choice, Delia returned. ‘So, tell me? Have you really got a pregnancy on a houseboat?’

‘We do. The poor woman didn’t seem to realise she was entitled to any care, so I don’t think she had been checked at all until today.’

Delia sipped, attentive. ‘Is she alright?’

‘Physically, yes.’ Patsy inclined her head thoughtfully. ‘Blood pressure was a little low but baby’s heartbeat is strong and seems to be coming along nicely. Trouble is, they would be entitled to classes and formula and all of the things our district families are, only they’re never in one place long enough to find out.’

‘Has she many children?’

‘Three, that we saw today. And I daresay they’ve never seen a doctor or a vaccination in their lives either.’

Delia watched, empathetic and enchanted as the redhead talked animatedly about her day’s district patients. Once so reserved, it was a delight to see Patsy like this. She would go to take a sip of coffee only to remember another detail and place the cup halfway down to voice it, and then take the coffee halfway up again a moment later. Every so often she would pause in thought with head tilted, which only served to cock one pigtail up into the air like the ear of an attentive collie dog. Delia stifled a giggle at the resemblance.

‘Delia? Are you laughing at the misfortunes of my patients?’ Patsy frowned.

‘No! I’m not I promise.’ Delia pressed her lips together to supress her smile. ‘The real question is how are you and your long limbs going to deliver a baby on a houseboat?’

‘It’s surprisingly roomy.’ Patsy commented, eliciting a sceptical eyebrow raise. ‘…If one stays sitting down.’

* * *

The evening on call passed slowly, but without incident. Patsy found herself buoyed through the late hours by the memory of the three minutes of interlocked arms she and Delia had risked on the walk home, the squeeze of hands as they bid goodnight. The Welshwoman’s touch seemed to leave a ghost of itself behind, and whilst Patsy flicked through the back issues of The Lancet stacked next to the telephone, she could almost still feel the warm weight of Delia’s arm in the crook of her elbow. Almost.

As the summer sun rose unrelenting once more, the house too had risen to its usual morning routine of hurried turns in the bathroom before assembling in the dining room for breakfast. Delia bid them a hasty goodbye on the stairs, a piece of toast held between her teeth as she fought to pin her cap in place. Barbara had dashed to hold the front door open for her and Delia reversed through it gratefully, hands still fumbling beneath her cap as she disappeared down the steps.

‘Oh dear, not much of a breakfast for poor Delia this morning.’ Barbara commented, looking concerned.

‘That’s what you get for tardiness, Barbara, she knows the drill!’ Trixie winked, as the familiar rhythm of the passing of plates and teacups and rounds of toast began. After a few minutes Sister Julienne broke the hubbub with a rather unfamiliar solemnity.

‘This evening I would like you all to attend a special seminar, here at Nonnatus house.’ The nurses and nuns turned to look at her, various pairs of eyebrows raised and lowered at her sombre tone. ‘After a great deal of prayer and reflection I have asked Dr Turner to come and talk to us about… the new contraceptive pill.’

Seven pairs of eyes watched her steadily, the senior nun’s expression lacking the excitement with which obstetrics at large had been awaiting such news. Trixie broke the silence.

‘The contraceptive pill is ready, at last?’ She asked, knife poised over the jam jar.

Sister Julienne gave a small inclination of her head. ‘In the next few weeks.’

‘Well that’s tremendous news!’ Patsy beamed, looking around the table. Trixie and Barbara returned eager smiles, Sisters Winifred and Mary Cynthia both looked a little more hesistant, whilst Nurse Crane was giving nothing away, looking down her glasses with an impassive expression on her face. Sister Monica Joan was eyeing Trixie’s grip on the jam jar and appeared disinterested in the entire proceeding.

‘I’ve invited Mr Hereward to join us,’ Continued Sister Julienne solemnly, Trixie and Patsy exchanged a look that very nearly became an eye roll. ‘So that he can give us a Christian perpective. I shall expect you all in the front room for seven o’clock.’

‘Yes, Sister.’ Came a mumbled reply, as Monica Joan dived for the jam.

* * *

‘ _Well_ ,’ began Trixie, stepping onto the porch, pulling a pair pastel sunglasses from their case and a cigarette from its box. ‘Out of all my nursing seminars, I think we can agree that was both the most awkward and the most _terribly_ entertaining!’

‘Poor Tom.’ Intoned Patsy with an amused smile, pausing as they both sparked up. ‘It was bad enough that Sister Julienne had wheeled him in to talk of 'recreational intercourse' at all, even before Nurse Crane started up with her talk of wooden phalluses.’

Delia emerged onto the porch behind them, stretching her stiff limbs. ‘You’re not adverse to phalluses are you Pats?’ she asked with a sly wink. ‘I thought male surgical would have toughened you up.’

Patsy narrowed her eyes behind Trixie’s turned back. ‘Not _me_ , Delia, I was talking about poor-‘

She cut her clarification short as the harried looking clergyman in question appeared from behind them, Barbara hot on his heels as he hastened down the steps away from the house.

‘Tom, slow down, it wasn’t as bad as you think!’ Barbara was attempting, but Tom was making a beeline for the safety of his own front door. Patsy, Trixie and Delia struggled to supress their giggles until the pair were safely out of earshot.

‘Do you think it’s the fear of Nurse Crane’s phallus talk, or her fascination with that patch of Brylcreem that has him moving so fast?’ Delia chuckled, hopping up to sit on the stone wall of the porch.

‘What was that?’ Patsy asked, her cigarette smoke mingling with the hazy evening sunlight.

‘The mysterious stain halfway up the wall in the dining room that Phyllis and Monica Joan keeping going on about?’ Two blank faces looked back at her ‘A masculine smell about it? Barbara keeps pretending she can’t see it? Six foot Brylcreemed clergyman.’ Delia jerked her thumb over her shoulder in the direction of the curates house as realisation dawned on Trixie and Patsy.

‘Detective Busby, however do you do it?’ Asked Trixie admiringly over the rim of her sunglasses.

‘Male surgical.’ Said Delia with a humble shrug. ‘I’m forever trying to get the stuff out of the pillowcases.

‘Get what out of pillowcases?’ Barbara asked, coming up the steps, looking slightly dejected.

‘Mysterious stains.’ Said Trixie innocently, taking a long drag on her cigarette.

Barbara gaped, fumbling for a change of topic before managing; ‘Oh right – well - gosh wasn’t that jolly interesting? All that talk of… contraception. Would you use it, Patsy, Delia?’

Trixie slid her sunglasses down her nose to watch as Patsy sputtered just slightly on her cigarette at the sudden change of focus. A quick glance to Delia noted the petite nurses amused expression, Trixie pushed her frames back into place and cleared her throat.

‘None of us poor spinsters have a chap to worry about, Barbara. You are our woman of the world now, we shall all just have to live vicariously through you!’

Patsy flicked Delia a relieved glance as Barbara dissolved into a flustered mumble once more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not my best. Normal service will be resumed shortly.


	12. Phyllis Crane and the Watchful Gaze

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alternative title: Phyllis Crane and the watchful gays.

Phyllis Crane had begun her midwifery studies more than fifteen years ago, she realised as she eased open a well-thumbed text she had been recommended at the time. ‘Midwifery and Birth – A Practical Introduction for Nurses’. She had managed to arrive late to the profession by the modern standards, having started out as a typist and secretary to try and support the mother who had given her so much. With the outbreak of the second war on the horizon Phyllis had felt the call to service tug her away from her desk, and had signed herself up for the Women’s Land Army, spending several years tending farms and vehicles in Kent whilst battles raged above their ploughed fields. It wasn’t until after the dust had settled that she found herself at last drawn to study, and as the news of Japan’s surrender had filtered through the country’s wireless, a chestnut-haired Phyllis Crane had purchased this book, ready to join a new cause.

The text was already long out of date by the time her younger Nonnatus colleagues had started their training, several of its standard recommendations having since been proved useless, or even detrimental to safe labours. But it was these she was looking for now, those practices that had emerged from rudimentary medicine and old wives tales before the role of a medical midwife had ever existed. Phyllis Crane had learned many things in her years, and one of them was that you can learn much from mistakes. And so, with a red ball point pen and a set of paperclips to mark the pages, Phyllis was compiling a list of outdated midwifery myths and mistakes, to pass on to young Nurse Busby as she began her own studies so many years later.

She sipped her tea and winced, it had gone cold whilst she had been absorbed in her work. She pushed her chair back from the kitchen table and stood, weathered forearms sticking slightly to the wax-cloth with the summer heat. Regardless of the temperature, she lifted the kettle back onto the stove and lit the gas beneath it as somewhere within the house a heavy door banged shut.

Phyllis snuffed out the match with a flick of her wrist and glanced over her spectacles down the wood-panelled corridor. Two sets of eager footsteps reached her ears only slightly before the sight of Nurses Busby and Mount rounding the corner, capes flapping behind them and heads bowed together in conversation. They appeared to be making a beeline for the kitchen, and Phyllis sighed down at the stubbornly slow kettle. They would judge her for making tea in such weather, and then she would have to explain yet again the cooling effect of a hot drink on the body’s internal temperature. Nobody ever believed her.

She glanced up again as the pair drew almost level with the doorway, but they turned off towards the garden without breaking step or eye contact, Nurse Mount guiding the shorter woman round the corner with the smallest touch to an elbow. Phyllis made no salutation to disturb them, and as they disappeared she was quite sure they had not noticed she was there at all.

The kettle whistled abruptly for her attention, and she grasped it and the teapot into two sturdy hands, swilling and refilling before placing the new pot on the table. Another skill the years had taught her, she thought as she sank back down into her chair, was that of observation. Careful observation of a patient was vital for any nurse, for changes in condition as well as to observe anything they may try to withhold. Generations of Poplar patients not used to having a National Health Service would downplay illnesses in hope of minimal doctor’s charges and a swift return to work. Busy women with mouths to feed would try and bustle you out the door as soon as the delivery pack arrived had been handed over. And there were those most awful of observations, a ready flinch, a high collar, a thick layer of compact powder over a dark bruise.

Phyllis Crane sipped her tea, the steam fogging her glasses till she set them down on the floral swirls of the waxed tablecloth. She was not a nosey person, she was adamant of that. But she was observant, and out of everything that she surveyed, what kindled her interest most was to watch the way in which a person looks at those they love. An expectant mother may brush off all concerns, but observing that single worried glance from a loved one could tell a perceptive nurse that there were more questions to be asked, and answered.

Phyllis’s observations did not end with her patients, for over the rim of her reading glasses she kept watchful eye over the looks and worries of her Nonnatan colleagues too. Upon entering a room Sister Julienne would scan the faces within it looking for signs of worry, her gaze not softening until reassured that all those within her charge were well. Phyllis had long noticed the touch of bashful admiration with which Barbara Gilbert, her quiet roommate, looked to her friends, Nurses Franklin and Mount. By contrast, the same young woman’s looks towards Tom Hereward were full of a candid fondness that fell open like the pages of a well-read book. Fred, cheerful tinkerer of all, looked at half the world with pride on his ruddy face, whether it be his wife, his grandchildren, his runner beans or his bicycles. And Sister Evangelina, (her absence felt more by Phyllis than she cared to admit) regarded most of Poplar with a look of love only thinly disguised as a scowl.

But Nurses Mount and Busby? She had seen the way in which those two women looked to each other frequently, but not with the excitement of two friends excited to be rota’d together, or sharing a silent joke at something a matronly older woman might say (for Phyllis saw _that_ look cross the clinic room nearly every day). No, these two looked to each other in what could only be described as wordless communication. A questioning glance, answered with small nods and even smaller smiles of reassurance, a constant checking in. She had seen the way in which the girls looked to each other secretly, subtly, but with a frequency as if maintaining a thread between them with looks alone. Phyllis ran a hand through her greying curls with a sigh; certainly, there was little else but looks that they could share in this world. But, she mused, they could become lost in such gazes, as she had just witnessed in the corridor when they passed by, seemingly oblivious to her being there at all. They must be careful.

The tea cooled as she wrapped her weathered fingers around the china cup, and her mind wandered to the other extended members of this Nonnatus family. The doctor and his wife, though Phyllis knew their history was complex, shared smiles full of unabashed, warm fulfilment. It was reflected in the faces of their children, Phyllis having more than once described young Master Turner as looking like smile on a beanpole. As for their resident Bette Davis…

‘Oh!’ Trixie Franklin paused as she came clattering through the door way, a precarious stack of cups and saucers lent against the front of her blouse, the bottom of the stack balanced by two manicured hands. ‘Sorry Phyllis, I didn’t realise you were here…’

Phyllis pushed her spectacles back up her nose to regard the young woman in the doorway, who gave her a sheepish grin in hope that it might distract from the stash of china in her arms.

‘Hmm, I thought we were running low on crockery.’ Phyllis observed, as the grin shifted into one of apology and the blonde crossed the room to carefully deposit her cargo on the kitchen counter.

‘Awfully sorry, those last minute coffees before a call out always seem to mean I run out of time to pop my cup back down to the kitchen.’ Trixie explained, dismantling her stack into the sink one by one and pulling on a pair of yellow rubber gloves. Something about her bright tone was false, and Phyllis slid her glasses back down her nose to better examine the back now turned to her.

‘That’s a lot of coffee for one person, you ought to consider a nutritional Ovaltine of an evening.’ Phyllis advised. The sloped shoulders picked up just a jot as Trixie twisted round to face her.

‘More of a Horlicks girl myself.’ The blonde replied with a wink.

Phyllis smiled at the cheek, but as the young nurse turned back to the sink she saw the shoulders slump a little, saw the smile fade from the face a little too fast. Slim arms began to scrub at the saucers, and Phyllis returned her attention her textbook, taking up the red biro once more to note pages and outdated practices. They worked in silence for a few minutes, until two sets of footsteps in the corridor outside caused them both to look up.

‘ _Delia_.’ Came a hissed whisper, and a moment later the aforementioned nurse hurried past the doorway, her redheaded companion following a few paces later in equal haste. Phyllis glanced to Trixie to see her watching the doorway intently, her expression curious.

‘Something on your mind, kid?’ Phyllis asked quickly, hoping to deflect her attention away from the young pair whose secrecy was so delicately maintained. But something in the blonde’s face, and the way she took a moment too drag her eyes away from the corridor caused Phyllis to ponder her words more sincerely. Trixie met her gaze and the older nurse noted that even the young woman’s proficiency with a powder compact could not cover the deep circles beneath her eyes, the blue of the irises dimmed by some unknown worry. Phyllis frowned in concern and lowered her pen.

‘No, nothing at all.’ Trixie answered at last, giving Phyllis a stiff smile and turning back to her task. She sunk another saucer beneath the surface and deposited it with an unsteady hand onto the rack, suds flying.

‘You can say you don’t want to talk about it.’ Phyllis offered softly, closing her book. ‘You can even say you can’t talk about it, but please don’t say it’s nothing. I know that look. I see it in the mirror sometimes.’

Phyllis bit her lip at this last addition, a fraction more familiar than she had meant to be. At the sink, Trixie’s agitated movements stilled. She turned to lean against the sink and looked to where Phyllis was sat at the table. She gave the older woman another smile, sadder this time, but more genuine.

‘A little of something I can’t talk about, and a little of something that I’m not quite ready to.’ Trixie peeled the marigolds from her hands. ‘I am alright, Phyllis, honestly.’ She insisted.

Phyllis Crane raised her own hands in gracious defeat. ‘You don’t have to talk to me, talk to one of your friends. But do talk to someone, kid. It’ll do no good to bottle it up.’

Trixie tilted her head one side and shook it, her platinum ponytail swinging in disbelief.

‘Phyllis, you _are_ one of my friends.’ A true smile then, at last. ‘But for now, how about a nutritious Ovaltine?’

Phyllis Crane swallowed the small rise of emotion that had swelled in her throat at the young woman’s words. ‘Thought you were a Horlicks girl?’ She winked.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did you know you can write 1200 words where NOTHING HAPPENS?
> 
> If you like stories about Phyllis Crane sitting around and having feelings, check out my shorter fic, A Short Distance. The whole of this '1961' business and particularly this chapter grew from that piece of Phyllis-fan-fic. I love Phyllis.
> 
> Also, we've passed the 4000 hits mark. Astounded. Love you all.


	13. Delia Busby - Short, Dark and Sulking

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The gals and their pals have the evening off, though not quite the one Delia had in mind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two chapters in two days? Ah go on then...

Patsy hurried along the corridor after Delia’s retreating back. ‘Delia, please don’t be like this, I was doing this for us, for our… discretion.’ This last word came out as a whisper, but the brunette had certainly heard it, stopping to turn on her heel to fix Patsy with a look she had most certainly inherited from Mrs Busby.

‘You are doing this out of cowardice, Patience Mount.’ She said firmly, her own tone not nearly so quiet. Patsy sighed as she drew level with her, her uniform brogues ringing out in the still corridor.

‘I know you wanted to go just us, but Trixie has been making some… comments, and I thought it might be safer if we make it a group outing.’ She was distinctly aware of their proximity to Sister Julienne’s office door, and she extended a tentative hand to Delia’s elbow to encourage her a little further along the hallway. Delia allowed herself to be led to the bottom of the wide staircase, though her expression was stony.

‘What sort of comments?’ She asked, coolly.

Patsy paused to consider her answer. Nothing Trixie had said was explicitly concerning, but she had made a few remarks about Delia being Patsy’s ‘closest friend’ that had made apprehensive goosebumps rise on her pale skin. It was more likely out of jealousy than any real suspicion, Patsy reasoned, but the uncertainty had caused to suddenly change her purchase from two tickets for four, as she stood in the queue for the cinema box office.

‘Only that we spend an awful lot of time together. That we must be best friends. So I thought, if we made it a group outing and invited her, it might not look like we spend quite so much time alone...’ If Patsy could have grabbed her words from the air and shoved them back into her mouth she would have done, but it was too late.

‘We get almost no time _alone_.’ Said Delia, hurt apparent in her tone. Patsy pressed her lips together and resisted there urge to pull Delia to her, to press apologetic kisses into her hair. ‘This was supposed to be a date, Pats.’

‘I know.’ Patsy finished, lamely.

Delia shook her head and trudged up the stairs, her uniform cape flowing behind her. Patsy followed her, both remaining silent as they entered Delia’s box room, the brunette kicking off her shoes as soon she walked in. Patsy unfastened her cape and laid it carefully on the bed, not sure that she was welcome but unwilling to leave. She came to stand behind Delia, who was stood before the mirror struggling with the clasp of her cape, and the wide red straps that held the impractical item in place.

‘Let me.’ The redhead said softly, and Delia turned reluctantly to let her, not meeting her eyes. Patsy unhooked each strap and eased the cape from the shorter woman’s shoulders, pausing to feel the sturdy warmth of them as she did so, her gaze apologetic.

‘Don’t look at me like that.’ Delia grumbled. ‘I’m very cross with you.’

Patsy folded the cape over her arm and sighed. ‘I am sorry, Deels.’

‘I know.’ Delia echoed. She at last met Patsy’s gaze and saw the hurt within it. ‘We must look on the bright side I suppose, at least Barbara will be delighted.’

* * *

 

‘A trip to the pictures, tomorrow night? Oh yes, lets!’ Barbara’s reaction was just as Delia had promised. ‘We could get popcorn. Or a box of Milk Tray. Or ice creams!’

Patsy smiled at her friend’s uncomplicated enthusiasm. Most of Nonnatus House’s residents were gathered in the living room, with the exception of Sister Julienne who was stationed at the telephone for the evening.

‘How about you, Trixie? We’ve plenty of tickets.’ Delia flicked a pointed glance at Patsy over her newspaper. Trixie started slightly at Delia’s utterance, she had been lounging on the sofa next to the redhead but her mind had been quite elsewhere, Phyllis’s words from earlier in the day circling in her head. A precarious amount of ash had developed on the end of her cigarette whilst she had been inattentive, and she hastily tapped it into the cigarette tray before responding with her standard Wednesday evening excuse.

‘I have my art history class, sorry.’

‘You can miss it for one night surely?’ Patsy asked. ‘It’s not often that we all have the evening off.’

Trixie shifted uncomfortably, knowing that her studious alibi for her weekly Alcoholics Anonymous meetings was not the most convincing of excuses. Drawing another of her luxury cigarettes from its box, she fumbled to direct the conversation away from her slightly flimsy cover story.

‘What time is the showing?’ She asked, not quite the diversion she had been looking for.

‘Five o’clock.’ Replied Delia, folding her newspaper paper into her lap and tucking her legs beneath her on the other settee, careful not to disturb Phyllis who was sat beside her with a book of Spanish grammar balanced on her knee.

‘It sounds awfully good fun.’ Chimed Sister Winifred from the table. She was crocheting something charitable with a rather grumpy looking Sister Monica Joan. Patsy studied her smiling face for a moment, wondering if it was insensitive to make social plans in front of a young woman who could not partake in such things. But the nun seemed happy enough to encourage them in their excursion, nodding that ‘You deserve a proper treat, Trixie, you’ve all been working very hard this week.’

Trixie smiled thinly at the nun’s unhelpful endorsement and she took a lighter from Patsy’s proffered hand. ‘I’m not sure I’d be back in time to make the class. I’ve paid in advance you see, so I’d rather not miss it.’

‘What are we seeing?’ Barbara piped up.

‘ _The Greengage Summer_.’ Patsy replied. She typically wasn’t fussy what they saw when she and Delia planned a trip to the pictures. It was more an excuse to sit close together in the dark and hold hands beneath a box of popcorn, than any real interest in cinema. But the film had decent reviews and as a bonus the poster had featured a rather glamorous blonde. She looked back to their own glamorous blonde and raised a questioning eyebrow. ‘Are you sure we can’t tempt you, Trixie?’

‘Sorry, old thing.’ Trixie rolled the gold tip of her Sobranie between her fingers, not meeting Patsy’s eye. Patsy noted the evasion but didn’t press the issue any further, instead turning her attention back to the others. Trixie, much like herself, was not easily coerced into sharing something she wasn’t ready to.

‘Well then, we’ve a ticket going spare. Phyllis?’

Phyllis looked up from her book in surprise, to find three pairs of expectant eyes upon her.

‘Me? Oh no, thank you for the offer, but why don’t you ask one of your friends to go along with you?’

‘We are.’ Smiled Patsy warmly.

Phyllis paused for a moment, noting with tenderness that this was the second time in a single evening that she had been addressed as such. As a friend. Perhaps the young women didn’t see her as matronly as she had thought.

‘It’s been a long while since anyone has taken me to the pictures.’ She admitted. ‘Alright, so long as none of my patients go into labour before then, I’ll join you.’

‘Marvellous!’ Patsy clapped her hands together at the conclusion of plans. She met Delia’s eye but there was only a little reproach in the Welshwoman’s gaze. An evening out with Phyllis and Barbara might not have been quite what they had been hoping for, but it would serve its purpose as an example of them making plans not just with each other, and hopefully still any suspicions from Trixie. With any luck, they could still sit a little close in the dark.

* * *

 

So it was that early Wednesday evening Delia and Patsy found themselves in the back row of the Coronet theatre, on a would-be date with Barbara and Phyllis. Delia had tried to retain some annoyance that their private outing had been scuppered, but the simple joy of being four friends out for an evening, combined with the gentle warmth of Patsy’s knee again her own as the house lights dimmed, drove all brooding from her mind before the first of the popcorn was even eaten. _The Greengage Summer_   was enjoyable enough, and made considerably more entertaining by Barbara’s gasps of surprise and Phyllis’s disapproving grumbling at the more scandalous moments. Patsy would shoot her an amused glance every time this happened, and Delia reminded herself that although to be alone with Patsy was what she wanted most in the world, to see her surrounded by friends and laughter was the next best thing, and she would count her blessings for that at least.

They had left Phyllis’s trusty Morris at home, the stoic nurse having preferred the option of a brisk walk, and as they emerged from the Cinema into the late summer air, Delia reached instinctively for Patsy’s arm. Patsy gave her a glance of uncertainty but any protest was cut off as she felt another warm hand take her by the elbow. She turned to see Barbara grinning at her, before the brunette turned to grasp a surprised Phyllis by the arm too. The four of them stood looked bemusedly at each other before bursting into laughter.

‘Right then, off we go!’ Barbara piped cheerfully, pulling them off into a steady pace towards home. At four-abreast they couldn’t fit onto the pavement without Delia having to duck and squeeze around the lampposts, and so Phyllis pulled them into the quiet road, and on they marched. Patsy dug her hands into the pockets of her coat and tried to control the wide smile spreading across her face. She wondered what she had done to find herself here, in a town she could call home and nearly all of her favourite women on her arm. She only wished Trixie were here to see them.

‘Coffee, anyone?’ Suggested Delia as they passed one of her and Patsy’s favourite haunts.. It was barely seven and she was keen to make the most of their night off. The four came to a halt on the cobbles, but Phyllis gave a shake of her curly head.

‘I don’t partake in caffeine after six o’clock.’ She said primly, and Barbara too looked uncertain, unhooking her arm from Patsy’s to glance at her watch.

‘I might try and see Tom, he’ll have finished evensong by now.’ She smiled apologetically.

Patsy looked to Delia with what she hoped was a passably friendly smile, though her face had been beaming of its own accord all the way home. ‘Just you and me then, old thing!’

They waved off Phyllis and Barbara, who continued down the dark street arm in arm once more. Delia pinched her lips together and placed a restraining hand on Patsy’s arm till the pair had safely disappeared around the corner, before they both burst laughing, propping each other up as they bent over the cobbles, positively weak with mirth.

‘My goodness, I take back all my protesting, Pats. I think that was the most fun I’ve ever had at the pictures!’ Delia managed eventually, wiping a tear from her eye. Patsy returned the sentiment as she dabbed the evidence of her own laughter away with a handkerchief, trying to avoid disturbing her makeup.

‘I know it wasn’t quite what you had in mind.’ Patsy started, her smile apologetic. ‘But we can get a coffee now, just you and me? I’ll buy you something disgustingly milky, anything you like.’

‘Honestly cariad, I had the loveliest time.’ Delia flicked a cautious glance over Patsy’s shoulder before taking the handkerchief and brushing away a smudge of mascara that had escaped onto a rouged cheek. ‘The drinks are on me, even if it’s something short, dark and bitter.’

‘Just the way I like them.’ Winked Patsy, taking back the hanky and turning on her heel towards the café.

Delia gaped at the cheek, and the uncharacteristically frank flirtation. ‘Excuse me?!’

‘Consider yourself excused!’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just fun research things...
> 
> The Coronet Cinema was in Eltham and not Poplar but its just a cool looking 30s building (derelict now) and I could see Patsy emerging from it with four tickets like 'shit, Delia is going to kill me.'
> 
> The Greengage Summer was just a slightly random choice of British films out at the time, but the blonde on the poster turned out to be Susannah York who later appeared in the Killing of Sister George, partly filmed in the real Gateways club, and once I realised that I had to keep it. 
> 
> Also I've finally worked out what those weird looking black-brown cigarettes that Trixie smokes are (Sobranies!) so expect me to victoriously name drop that wherever possible...


	14. Trixie Franklin And The Inclinations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'm aware that my pace is a little slow, so it may be worth re-reading the last few chapters for context of what is weighing on Trixie's mind so terribly. I really hope you like this one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also I know Trixie Franklin and the Inclinations sounds like a doo-wop group but it was that or 'Trixie Franklin Bottles It Up' which is worse.

_Do talk to someone, kid. It’ll do no good to bottle it up._

Trixie Franklin was stood before the mirror and the strip of dado rail that served as their dressing table. She had already had a steadying cup of Horlick’s at afternoon tea and yet Phyllis Crane’s words seemed to be repeating on her like a regrettable sherry pudding. She caught sight of Patsy’s reflection, regarding her with a questioning look, and hastily raised her makeup brush to powder the words into submission.

‘Are you _sure_ you won’t join us?’ Patsy had risked one more attempt to recruit her to their outing when they both returned to the house together for lunch. But Trixie had brushed her off, each slowly passing hour of the day reaffirming to her exactly where she needed to be tonight. Alcoholics Anonymous was both her secret and her saviour.

‘I have a prior engagement as you well know!’ Trixie had casually rebuffed, ‘You shall just have to be quicker in future, if you want me to squeeze you into my terribly busy schedule.’

It had worked, as it always did. The twinkle, the deflection, the slight cheek. Beatrix Franklin was no stranger to avoiding an unwanted question, no matter how heavily the secret might be weighing her down. But it seemed, she pondered as she watched Patsy’s reflection browse through the contents of the shared wardrobe, that she was not the only one.

 _Talk to someone_ ,’ Phyllis had said. But how could she? Two secrets had burdened her mind these past weeks, weighted her body till the worry almost stilled the confident sway of her hips. But she could not share them. One them was pitiful, it made her weak. And the other… the other was not even hers to share. She should not have it at all, it had certainly been carefully concealed from her, but her own nosiness had driven her out of bed in hope of scandal and now-

‘Green or blue?’

Trixie gave a start, almost heavily rouging herself on one cheek in surprise. She spun round to see patsy holding two garments aloft, her face expectant.

‘Green. No – Blue. And a pencil skirt with it.’ The blonde hastily dictated with a wave of a manicured hand. Patsy returned the rejected dress to the wardrobe, apparently satisfied. Trixie replaced her brushes into their floral case, and fished out a stick of eye kohl and a tube of mascara. Behind her, Patsy stripped, braided head bowed as she buttoned the fresh blouse across the satin brassiere. How many times had they gotten ready together, Trixie found herself wondering. How many times had she undressed in front this woman, not knowing that she held certain… inclinations?

No, she would not allow herself to succumb to that. With practised hands Trixie crafted a pointed wing to each lined eye. Patsy was not ‘this woman’, and besides she knew nothing for sure of Patsy or Delia’s _inclinations_. Perhaps this, whatever this may be, was an… an only exception kind of love. But how long had Patsy been in love and never told her? She was hurt by the secrecy, and yet she could not kid herself that she was disgusted by the nature of it. Not when-

‘That’s a lovely colour, Trix.’ Patsy come alongside her at the mirror, her own pot of rouge balanced on her palm, but admiring the shade on Trixie’s cheeks instead. ‘Do you think it would work for pasty old Pats?’

Trixie smiled and gave her friend a wink, hastily pushing all such thoughts back into the box from whence they came. ‘Only one way to find out.’

Trixie pulled the rouge and brush from her case again and set about crafting a smooth dusting of colour onto Patsy’s high cheekbones. The redhead smiled at the result in the age-speckled mirror, fingering a fiery plait.

‘No beehive tonight?’ Trixie asked, taking up the hairspray to set her own blonde locks in place.

‘No, a little too much effort for the pictures.’ Patsy replied, crossing to her bed to gather her purse and belongings.

‘Well that’s not the attitude. Who knows who might be there to impress.’ Trixie said casually, watching Patsy’s turned back in the mirror.

‘I’m going to the pictures with Phyllis, I’m not likely to be impressing potential suitors.’ Patsy chuckled, still stooped over the bedside table.

‘You never know, sometimes it can be someone who’s been there all along.’ Trixie ran a tube of pink lipsticks across her mouth and pressed both lips together. She saw Patsy’s shoulders stiffen. The reply, when it came, was a little too bright.

‘Well, I’m all set. Thank you for the sartorial guidance as always.’ Patsy smiled, the warmth of it not quite meeting her guarded eyes. ‘Have a lovely evening at your art class.’ With that she left, pulling the door closed behind her.

The silence that followed the closing door seemed to settle in the space Patsy had left. Trixie bit her lip, had she been too obvious? She shot one last reprimanding look at her reflection and sank heavily onto her bed. The only way to shift this weight of uncertainty and secret was, as Phyllis had said, to talk about it. If she were advising a friend she would say the very same. But this wasn’t her secret to share, and the ramifications from any such indiscretion would be huge, devastating even. And so the only person she could possibly speak to it about was the very person who had kept it from her, and it was clear that Patsy had no intention on sharing such confidences any time soon.

Trixie stretched to retrieve a Sobranie from the packet on the bedside table, and lit it. Conflict raged beneath her lacquered coiffure. She was angry, and yet not angry. How long had they kept this from her? Of course they had kept it from her. Had this been going on since before Delia had moved in to Nonnatus? Had Patsy _genuinely_ moved a female lover into a house full of nuns? Good lord, had this been going on since before Delia had that ghastly accident? She had nearly had to move all the way back to Wales, until she had been offered the room at Nonnatus… Trixie tapped ash into a stray teacup, mind spinning with questions that she could not answer, whilst beneath the swirl of questions bubbled memories that she didn’t care to recall.

Even if all her suspicions were true, and Patsy and Delia were pursuing some kind of relationship hidden from them all, Trixie couldn’t fathom why would they put themselves _through_ it? Patsy was sophisticated, striking and clever. She could be a little standoffish admittedly, but given a little guidance she could certainly have her pick of men. Delia too was quite charming, witty and quick to bring a smile to anyone’s face. She too would have no trouble finding a suitor of her own, one she could be courted by, openly. Why then, would they choose a life of pining secretly for someone they could never truly have? Trixie stubbed out her cigarette and reflexively lit another. She was not uncaring, she had crushed on girls at school, and as she grew older she found she could enjoy the thrill of their attentions by simply being the most glamorous girl in the form. But there is a limit, Trixie had found, a natural point where becomes quite obvious that male attention is the only sort that can truly go anywhere. And so she had grown up and out of such things. For the most part.

The small beside clock ticked quietly, and Trixie balanced the burning cigarette on a saucer and moved to lay uncomfortably on the bed, longing the hours to pass until she could escape to confidences of her support group. Though she could not share everything with them, talking one of her problems through may at least still the churning of her stomach. Thin blue cigarette smoke twisted above her, curling itself dreamily towards the ceiling. Trixie swallowed and ran two flat palms along the quilt beneath her, trying to ground herself in the present as her mind swirled, but the feeling of satin beneath her fingers only served to pull her further into her reflections.

Her first Christmas in Poplar, the convent had played extended, adoptive family for an abandoned baby. The sisters had named him Raymond after Raymond Nonnatus and they had all played many parents to him between the chaos of Christmas rounds and hasty preparations for Chummy’s nativity. Trixie could pin and set a hairdo like a professional but sewing was out of her remit, so she had spent most of the evenings modelling various nativity items and filling the room with her own blend of glamour and cigarette smoke. She had enjoyed the satin angel wings Cynthia had created a little too much, sashaying about the room in them much to Cynthia's protests. Eventually the petite nurse was forced to run laughing after her, trying to attach feathers and sequins whilst Trixie had strutted and posed disobediently till Raymond called out for attention.

Trixie pressed two manicured hands to her eyes and tried hard not to think of how Cynthia had held the baby to her chest, how Trixie had watched a sweet serenity calm her features where the laughter had been. She was heady from the smoke and the nights of broken sleep. Alright, so maybe she had pined for Cynthia in a way that was more than camaraderie. But she could never be with her, men were the only _practical_ option. She couldn’t comprehend why Patsy and Delia would pursue what they have, knowing as they must that it could never go anywhere.

For then, Trixie sighed, all you are left with is vignettes of what was, and a tendency to read into everything that comes after. Cynthia, scolding and practical at Trixie’s pursuit of a Marilyn wiggle. Cynthia, strangely dapper in a woollen vest and blouse, the petite circle of her waist highlighted by the ribbed knit. Cynthia, bashful and smiling as Jenny spins her about their bedroom in a two-step on a grey Sunday afternoon. Cynthia, poised on the steps, strange and unfamiliar in starched novitiate cotton. Cynthia, pulling the telephone from Trixie’s hands as she weeps, telling the caller ‘it’s alright, there’s someone with her now, she’s in a place of safety’. Cynthia, pulling her close, till the words almost seem believable. Cynthia, battered and bruised, flinching away like a creature wounded.  

A dull ache in her back pulled Trixie back into the present. Her back had grown stiff from her tense position on the bed – how she longed to get up, cross the room with that familiar path, and numb her wounds with a visit to Trixie’s bar. It had seemed so glamourous, her selection of tipples lined up like fruit ready to be plucked, and decanted into shallow stemmed glasses. The top of the cabinet had been empty for a long time now, emptied down the sink the night that she had called the Samaritans. But she knew that Patsy kept her own more simple drinks in the cupboard below; warm scotches and herbal gin, their thick glass bottles reassuringly heavy in the hand. _It’ll do no good to bottle it up_. Trixie bit back a bitter laugh, what would Phyllis know of the power of the right bottle. Beneath the crisp blouse, Trixie’s very heart trembled with the emotions of the last weeks, and is if drawn by magnetism she found herself pulled from the bed, to kneel at the cupboard. A long moment passed, kohl-rimmed eyes engaged in a standoff with the pale wood. Then, dipping her chin in resignation, Trixie grasped the wooden handle and pulled it open. Empty. Empty except for her two cut crystal tumblers and a single one of Patsy’s gloves, somehow without its counterpart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *bangs fists on table*  
> BISEXUAL TRIXIE FRANKLIN.
> 
> Also I saw Victoria Yeats on stage three times last week (job perks) and fanboyed every time. Wanted to ask her how series 7 was going, couldn't get near!


	15. Patsy Mount and the Awkward Silence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the hiatus, life and original writing ran away with me. But I have returned to 1961 to power through these final months at Nonnatus.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's what you missed in Poplar. Patsy and Delia are doing their best to be happy and gay at Nonnatus. After a rocky start, they think that they have mastered the art of secret looks, secret breakfasts, and taking Phyllis and Barbara on their dates. But being queer in the sixties SUCKS and Phyllis sees all. Patsy and Delia went to Gateways and had big talks and nearly had a run in with a bitey madman. Delia came home safe and scared the crap out of them all, before Sister Mary Cynthia really did have a run-in with the bitey madman. Sister Julienne stared pensively out of some windows and Sister Monica Joan ate a lot of cake and dispensed profound wisdom to all before filling the house with the goddamn dandelions. Patsy and Delia worked through their issues a little too well and Trixie heard them boning, which in turn raked up a whole load of feels for BISEXUAL TRIXIE FRANKLIN. Phyllis is mentoring Delia and watching out for everyone. Trixie is struggling to juggle both Patsy's secrets and her own, and for a moment came eye to eye with her addiction and won. Sometimes the Nonnatuns actually deliver babies, but not often because I know nothing about midwifery. And that's what you missed in Poplar.

Sunday dawned both grey and humid. It had been a strange week, with even stranger weather, the British weather system seemingly trying to fit the worst of each season into the final days of summer. Patsy stood in the relative shelter of the back porch and blew misshapen smoke rings into the drizzle. She didn’t smoke in the mornings, she thought vaguely as took another deliberate drag. Not even Trixie was fond of a hazy bedroom first thing in the morning (the clouds of lacquer generated by the pair of them were bad enough) and Patsy found smoking in the street in daylight hours rather vulgar. Caffeine was her usual stimulant of choice of the mornings, but here she was on the back step at barely eight. Well, it had been a very strange week.

She and Delia had returned home on Wednesday evening drunk on nothing more than laughter and silliness. Delia had told her, over two steaming post-cinema cups in Leonardo’s café, that her bunches made her look ‘rather charmingly’ like a collie dog, which had caused Patsy to whip her head round in surprise so fast that she had poked herself in the eye with the filter of her cigarette. Patsy had then confided in low tones that sometimes when Sister Julienne quirked her head to one side in her signature ‘listening’ pose, Patsy found herself also struck with the image of an alert sheepdog, as well as a distinct urge to call ‘come-by!’ Delia responded to this confidence by elegantly spurting tea out of both nostrils and the pair had left rather hurriedly in disgrace.

Somehow they had made it across the square despite being almost too weak with laughter to walk, and Patsy was struck for the hundredth time by how at ease the giggling Welshwoman made her. She could count most of the Nonnatus employees as very dear friends by now, but no one had ever got under her skin like Delia, no one had ever lowered her defences this far, and no one had ever managed to spurt Typhoo out of their nose and somehow made it seem endearing.

They had half-fallen through the doors of Nonnatus, giddy with laughter, to see Trixie descending the stairs, hat and purse in hand. Patsy had seen the blondes eyes travel slowly between them in a way that made Patsy’s stomach clench even now, as she stood watching the morning rain four days later. She had fumbled for a distraction, an explanation, something, as the blonde paused on the bottom step.

‘Didn’t expect to see you Trixie!’ Patsy blurted a little too brightly. ‘I thought you would be at your art class – art history class?’ She had plastered on what she hoped was a convincing smile as Trixie’s blue eyes flicked back to Delia, as if weighing her up. Patsy swallowed, Trixie and Delia were friendly, friends almost. So why was Trixie suddenly fixing the brunette with a look of such suspicion? Patsy swallowed uncomfortably before Delia’s voice broke through her racing thoughts.

‘Are you alright Trixie?’ The Welshwoman had ventured, as the three of them remained paused slightly awkwardly in the hallway.

‘Yes.’ Trixie eventually replied. Her heavily mascaraed lashes blinked twice, and from behind them Trixie watched as the two women’s faces shifted from polite smiles to curious expectation. She could trust Delia, she knew it really, and god knows that _Patsy_ could keep a secret, but still what she needed to say to them was daunting. A few long seconds dragged themselves past as Trixie willed her mouth to speak. Drawing herself up she tried again. ‘Yes. Well no. I am alright thank you, but I actually don’t go to an art history class. The reason I am busy each Wednesday evening is that I have a… standing engagement, you see.’

Patsy raised an eyebrow, ‘Oh?’ Her mind flicked through the possibilities. Keep Fit class, seeing friends, gentleman caller? It would be unlike Trixie to be secretive about any of those things.

‘With a group.’ Trixie lifted her chin, ready for the expectant faces in front of her to fall. ‘An alchoholics anonymous group. And I’ve been going there for five months.’

A few more long seconds passed, and then two smiles, and two quite unexpected responses.

‘Well I think its marvellous.’

‘Good for you.’

And with that Trixie had left. Since then she and Patsy had been passing ships, Trixie even spending one night on a patients sofa such was her exhaustion post-delivery. Patsy stubbed out her cigarette on the damp terracotta of a nearby flowerpot and took up her pensive leaning position once more. It was so strange, for Trixie to make such a huge declaration, share this huge confidence, and then follow it with absent silence. Any time they had spent in the same room had felt stilted and awkward. Yesterday Trixie had been off rota, but she had gone into town for almost the entire day whilst the rest of the Nonnatuns split the weekend house calls and other duties. Patsy was ensconced in the telephone station delivering Braxton hicks advice to a concerned father to be when Trixie’s heels had rung out her return home. Her blonde head had been still and gently snoring on the pillow by the time Patsy had fallen gratefully onto her twin bed, and she had been gone again by the time Patsy woke. She had tried to keep busy, to keep her mind from alternating catastrophes of losing Trixie, to losing Delia, but her week had been unusually empty. Delia was knee deep in ward work and midwifery revision, and Patsy had achieved what Sister Julienne had pronounced a Nonnatus record by delivering precisely no babies in eight days. Not one. Each home visit and stint at the telephone had ended uneventfully, the mothers of Poplar choosing to go into labour about thirty minutes after she had handed over to a weary colleague. And so without the distraction of deliveries, she had filled her empty hours with coffee, classless magazines and two packets of cigarettes.

The redhead drummed her fingers against the stiff paper in her trouser pocket. When Trixie had come down the stairs looking so stiff and unlike herself, Patsy’s mind had lurched, as it always did, to discovery. Now it appeared to be that Trixie had only wanted to share her own secret, and Patsy hadn’t given that possibility a thought at all. Had she disappointed her? Should she have hugged her there on the stairs, or offered her something more than calling the whole thing ‘marvellous’? It wasn’t marvellous at all, Patsy hadn’t been there for her, and now she had to trek halfway across town once a week to find people who would be. And now it appeared someone else may need Patsy, and the redhead wasn’t sure she was ready for that summons at all.

The letter had been on the hall tray, innocuous but for the red and blue edging marking it out as airmail. The handwriting was unfamiliar, _‘Miss P Mount’_ in delicate cursive, but something about the small envelope had caused Patsy to thrust it hastily into the pocket of her slacks, where it had been trying valiantly to burn a hole all through breakfast. Delia had eyed her across the table as she pushed bacon around the plate, whilst Phyllis had waxed lyrical about the development of the modern autoclave. She had cut her breakfast into smaller and smaller pieces, eating none of it, till she heard her own voice excusing herself from the table altogether. Her brogues had hastened of their own accord past Trixie’s empty chair and onto the damp porch, as though the cool air might soothe the scalded skin.

Across the square Patsy caught sight of Tom Hereward making a beeline for the rectory, an umbrella angled against the unseasonal downpour. He spotted her as he balanced on his front step, fumbling for keys, and raised a hand in greeting. Patsy returned it, and watch him disappear inside. If she were someone else, if she had grown up to be someone else, she might seek comfort in someone like Tom, in religion, in the listening ear of a confessional box. The world had made her too hard for that, only two people could soften her. But alas, one was busy tending her patients at the hospital three miles away, and the other seemed to be avoiding her altogether. And so Patience Mount returned to her bedroom and slipped the letter into her jewellery box, and snapped the clasp firmly shut.

 

* * *

 

Phyllis Crane strode into the living room as the hall clock struck midday. She had politely declined Sister Winifred’s invitation to join their Latin prayers, though several visitors, both clergy and civilian had arrived at Nonnatus to take part. The wood panelling outside the chapel hummed with their credos and hymns, and she had retreated to the living room in search of a stiller silence in which to peruse her copy of the Lancet.

She arrived to find it empty but for Nurse Mount who was draped over the two seater sofa, maroon brogues dangling over the upholstered armrest and cigarette poised, as ever, between her pale fingers. Phyllis frowned at the inelegant pose, but said nothing. Nurse Busby, she knew, was at the London till the afternoon, Nurse Gilbert was in the chapel, and Nurse Franklin had barely been in the house all week. The redhead must be home alone. An open magazine of the celebrity sort lay in the young woman's lap, and she did not lift her eyes from it as Phyllis entered. Nurse Crane noticed that they did not seem to be travelling over the words either.

‘Good afternoon, Nurse Mount.’ Announced Phyllis, reverting to her usual formality. Patsy looked up, looking almost surprised to see her standing there at all.

‘Oh, yes I suppose it is. Good afternoon Phyllis.’ Patsy gave a thin smile before catching sight of the precariously ash-laden cigarette in her hand and reaching hastily to tap it on the side of the saucer she had balanced on the arm of the settee.

Phyllis took up position in her usual chair and opened her journal with a brisk flick of her strong wrists, whilst Patsy returned to her magazine. The article on the history of autoclaves had been a fascinating read, but there was no point re-treading familiar ground. Another headline caught her eye, _Antibiotics and Venereal Disease_. Phyllis readjusted her reading glasses in satisfaction. It was a subject she hadn’t read up on in some time, and it would be good to have something new to talk about over Sunday dinner.

Despite the engaging topic, as she reached the end of each paragraph Phyllis found her eyes wandering to the sprawled form of Nurse Mount. The young woman’s usually alert eyes were still and distant, fixed on the top of the page but her mind seemed somewhere else entirely. The senior nurse’s long distance vision wasn’t as good as it once was, but she was certain that the page had not been turned in the time she had been sat down. Phyllis thin eyebrows knitted themselves together in a frown, unused to seeing the redhead idle. As if hearing that last thought, Patsy suddenly stirred, reaching for the cigarette packet in her pocket. She balanced the paper tube between her unrouged lips and flicked open the heavy metal lighter.

‘I think you had cigarettes for breakfast, as well as elevenses Nurse Mount. You ought to eat something of substance.’ Phyllis found herself saying, turning the page of her journal nonchalantly. Patsy paused, the flame sparking at the dust flecks a centimetre from the end of her Lucky Strike. She flicked the lighter closed.

‘I can smoke elsewhere if it bothers you, Phyllis.’ Patsy’s tone was more than usually clipped; Phyllis took off her glasses and gave her what she hoped was a sympathetic smile.

‘It doesn’t bother me kid, I’m just being a… a concerned friend. You all seem away with the fairies this past week. Nurse Franklin seems about as with us as you do this morning.’

‘Trixie?’ Patsy shifted in her seat to face the older nurse properly, the unlit cigarette and lighter clasped in one hand.

Phyllis hummed an affirmation and perched glasses back onto her nose. She looked back down at her Lancet, before adding casually, ‘I don’t like to pry, but I am here if you need me, any of you.’

Patsy shifted further down the sofa and worried at her lip. ‘Yes. I’m not sure I’ve been very good at being there for people recently. My mind has been… rather busy.’

Phyllis gave up on the Lancet, folding it into her lap and removing her glasses again. ‘You can’t be looking out for other people if you’re not looking after yourself, Nurse Mount.’ She fixed Patsy with a knowing look. ‘If you’re trying to look after someone, it’s very important that you start with you. I personally employ a vegetarian diet and my Swedish Naval exercises each morning. But I would suggest _you_ start by having some breakfast that doesn’t come out of a cigarette packet. Preferably before it’s dinner time.’

Patsy smiled, a half smile but one which carried genuine warmth behind it. She would deflect, she would compartmentalise, and she would shut letters into boxes where she did not have to look at them, but she would not wallow. But she would, first, have one more cigarette.

* * *

 

The afternoon passed slowly, Patsy simultaneously wishing away the hours till Delia returned home, and slightly dreading the arrival of Trixie. She tidied the telephone station, gathered the various stray teacups from about the house (more than one from the chapel pews) cleared the blackboard and rewrote the duty rota in neat script. Eventually she found herself hovering in the kitchen, the teapot stood ready and waiting with two cups at its side. A teaspoon balanced on each saucer and two bourbons sat patiently on a side plate. Patsy was certain that the blonde would be home before the Sunday dinner was on the table at its usual four o’clock, and she stood ready to boil the kettle as soon as she heard the front door close. As if on cue, the slamming of the heavy door rung out the blonde nurse’s arrival at exactly three, her heeled footsteps announcing that she had headed straight upstairs. Patsy lit the gas beneath the kettle and let the tea brew in the pot as she carried it carefully through the halls.   

She paused on the landing, steeling herself. Not to see Trixie, but to do the very thing that Patsy Mount found hardest of all, to openly communicate. She took a determined breath, and nudged open the door with her foot.

‘Room service?’ She offered, with a slightly uncertain smile. Trixie looked up from her shopping bags.

‘Hello sweetie, how very kind.’ She smiled and pushed a few perfumes aside to make space for the tray on the sidetable. Patsy poured the tea and closed her eyes for a minute, steadying herself. Gosh, why was she so nervous? It was only Trixie.

‘Patsy? Are you quite alright?’

Two blue eyes snapped open to see Trixie’s concerned reflection in the mirror before her. Patsy turned quickly, teaspoon in hand.

‘Of course! One lump or two?’ She asked.

Trixie didn’t reply, instead reaching for her shopping bag with a conspiratorial smile.

‘Close the door, Patsy, I got us a little present.’

It was a phrase used in their shared room a hundred times, and one usually followed by the appearance of a bottle of scotch or a nice gin. It usually filled Patsy with a sense of relief, a chance to unwind with the only person with a drier sense of humour than herself. But after recent reveleations, the imminent appearance of a bottle brought Patsy only a flutter of panic.

Trixie passed her bag, and Patsy glanced cautiously in to see, amongst the litter of receipts and humbug wrappers, not the amber glow of a bottle of Glenmorangie at all, but instead the thin edge of a record. She glanced back at Trixie who raised her pencilled eyebrows expectantly. Patsy took the 45 from the bag and ran a finger along the edge of the circular hole in the sleeve, where the track was printed on the purple centre panel.

‘Eartha Kitt… An unusual choice for you Trix?’

Trixie moved to where her dancette stood, and bent to plug it in. Patsy turned away too, busying herself with the teacups a moment longer. When at last she managed to form words, she found it slightly easier to direct them at the teapot, rather than her friend.

‘Trixie, I … I’m sorry if I didn’t react appropriately the other night when you told us… you know. I really do support you, I’m just not very good at saying these things.’ She turned on her last words, a cup and saucer in each hand, to find Trixie eyeballing her with a manicured hand on hip.

‘Patience mount, not good at speaking her feelings?’ Trixie winked. ‘I say that in jest, you know that I am just as bad. I have been just as bad all week.’

‘I thought you’d been avoiding me.’ Patsy said meekly, offering an apologetic tea, and at once Trixie’s usual coy smile softened into something more genuine. She took the cup with both hands and an earnest shake of her peroxide curls.

‘Gosh, Patsy, no. I haven’t been - Well maybe I have, but only out of my own embarrassment.’

‘You’ve nothing to be embarrassed about Trixie.’ Patsy protested.

‘And you’ve nothing to be sorry for.’ Trixie replied firmly.

They smiled at each other then, all awkwardness dissolving like the sugar lumps in Trixie’s tea, but the blonde added:

‘You can talk to me too. About anything at all.’

Her eyes were earnest, a little too earnest for Patsy’s liking. She felt her stomach contract just slightly, just as it always did when she found herself wondering if her love for Delia was plastered too openly across her face. In spite of it, she managed a slightly rueful laugh. ‘Good luck with that, Trixie.’

Trixie rolled her eyes and waved a hand in defeat. She beckoned for Patsy to pass her the record and placed it delicately onto the player, lifting the arm and lowering it till the distinctive crackle and click announced it had hit its mark. Patsy raised a sceptical eyebrow over her teacup as some rather… _twinkly_ music began to play. Trixie raised a finger as if to say ‘wait for it’, and Patsy took an obedient seat on the bed as Eartha Kitt’s distinctive voice began to sing.

_I’m just an old fashioned girl with an old fashioned mind  
Not sophisticated I’m the sweet and simple kind_

‘Trixie, what is th-‘ But Patsy was cut off with another warning look across the Dancette.

_I want an old fashioned house with an old fashioned fence  
and an old fashioned millionaire…. _

Patsy looked at Trixie in surprise and Trixie stifled a giggle that grew as the song went on. They fell about laughing as it ended and immediately set the needle back to the start, and by the time Sister Winifred knocked on the door to call them to dinner, they knew every word.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gosh I am rusty.
> 
> Also I've been on an Eartha Kitt binge so she was going to end up somewhere. It would have been a slightly outdated single by 1961, but I'm sure Trixie would have found it somewhere...


	16. Delia Busby and the Pelvic Presentations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> September 1961. Delia ploughs on through her midwifery revision as she considers retraining.

Mrs Busby’s letters to London, though well-intended, were always a bittersweet things to receive. Delia folded the latest instalment of parish gossip and the evils of London with a sigh and returned it to its envelope, eliciting a protest from the redhead reclining on her bed.

‘What, no Tenby scandal for poor old Pats?’ She had arrived thirty minutes earlier, coffee in hand, on the pretence of helping Delia revise for the afternoon, ‘like old times!’ But with her lips rouged and high waisted slacks rolled above slender ankles, Patsy was proving more of a distraction than a study aid.

‘Only more of the usual. So and so wore a particularly garish hat to church. The village is appalled. London is full of murderers and people who use circular tea bags. Mam is also appalled.’ Delia flopped onto the bed, so far as was possible when five foot ten inches of Nurse Mount was already splayed across your single mattress.

 ‘Who is she matchmaking you with this week?’ Asked Patsy undeterred, propping herself up on one elbow.

Despite being uncomfortably aware of Patsy's particular importance in her daughters life, Mrs Busby still valiantly padded her letters to London with the virtues of the local young men, at the steady rate of one a month. It made Delia's heart sink a little each time one was included, as though her life was somehow lacking in its absence of a male suitor. She knew her mother was trying to be gentle in her suggestions, but it stung to know that she would never understand that everything Delia needed and wanted in the world was reclined in front of her now, somewhat weary eyes sparkling with teasing humour.

‘Patsy Mount, you are nearly twenty-eight years old, I am not going to sit up with you and talk about boys.’ Delia scolded. Patsy rolled back with a groan, clapping slender hands over her ears as if to drown out the very idea.

‘Don’t remind me! Tell me its not true, Deels, I’m not ready for that ghastly number.’

Delia chuckled at her dramaticism. ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry, look I’ll change the subject.’

At once Patsy was propped up on an eager elbow once more, eyes wide and pencilled brows waggling. ‘So, who is September’s eligible bachelor?’

Patsy's grin was full of mischief, and Delia gave in almost at once. By now she had learnt to skip any paragraph that featured the name of an unfamiliar man in its opening, but begrudgingly she wiggled the letter out from her dress pocket again and consulted her mother’s slanting script.

‘This week it is Mrs Hodgeson’s lodger Ewan. Very clean hands, apparently. To give mam her credit, he is a particularly strong candidate as he was the sheep shearing champion of Tenby two years running.’ Delia rolled her eyes at the grinning redhead above her.

‘Gosh, how can you possibly resist?’ Patsy teased.

Delia found her eyes continuing their roll down the smooth curve of Patsy’s figure wondered much the same thing herself. It didn’t go unnoticed. Patsy rapped her on the shoulder with the rubber end of a pencil.

‘Focus, Busby. I want a full list of the risk factors for pre-eclampsia before you even think of leaving this bedroom.’

‘I wasn’t thinking of leaving, that’s rather the problem.’ Muttered Delia, pulling herself upright. A smirk snuck its way across Patsy’s features, and her eyes drifted to a battered book on the nightstand as Delia closed her own eyes in concentration. ‘Pre-eclampsia, also known as toxemia of pregnancy. Risk factors include geriatric mothers, first pregnancies, twins….’

As it so often had years ago in the impersonal halls of the nurses accommodation, revision had turned quickly into fervent kisses. All thoughts of Lodger Ewan were quickly forgotten as bare lips sought their rouged counterparts, and fingers delicately traced the seams of slacks and floral dresses. Delia ghosted a hand over her love’s lean thigh to pull her closer, only to find her suddenly disappear from beneath her. As quickly as it had started, it had ended. Delia blinked in surprise as Patsy stood beside the bed, shifting her weight from one brogued foot to the other. Her blue eyes flicked to the book, the ‘door book’ on the table. Delia went to smile at her caution, but then Patsy was pulling open the door instead of wedging it shut.

‘I best not distract you. Call if you need anything.’

A polite smile, a Nurse Mount smile, and she was gone. Delia blinked again at the space in the doorway where she had stood, and the space beneath her she had so hastily vacated. Delia slipped from the bed and hurriedly pushed her stocking feet into the nearest pair of shoes. By the time she had reached the landing, like a startled deer darting for foliage, Patsy was gone.

* * *

 After nearly three years of tiptoeing around shared accommodations and Patsy’s insecurities, Delia knew to tread softly on both counts. She would come when she was ready, with a puppy-dog look of apology and a tot of something expensive no doubt. The young nurse returned to her room and to her notes, doing her best to keep her mind busy whilst keeping the door ajar, ears straining for a familiar footstep on the landing. When at last it came, it was wrong, too heavy, and with a smart tap at the end like a soldier coming to attention.

‘Only me. Wanted to see how you were getting on.’

Delia looked up to see a head of grey-brown curls peering around the door frame.

‘Hello, Phyllis. I’m getting there I think. And terrifying myself slightly in the process.’ She lifted her book to show a particularly alarming diagram of a baby suspended in the pelvis. Phyllis peered at it and winced slightly.

‘Shoulder presentations. Always a challenge but perfectly manageable with the right knowledge. It’s all in the diagnoses, if it’s spotted after contractions start its straight to the operating room. Is the text I annotated for you proving useful?’

Delia gave her a grateful smile. ‘Invaluable, Phyllis, thank you.’

Phyllis returned her a satisfied nod, though Delia caught the older nurse eyeing the untidy spread of papers with a little apprehension.

‘Supper will be on the table presently, if you fancy joining us.’

* * *

 With Mrs B on her annual holiday to Margate, supper was a modest affair. A dish of sliced ham and boiled eggs was making its way slowly round the table as Delia took the last vacant seat. She tried in vain to catch Patsy’s eye whilst the midwives and nuns buttered white bread. Barbara and Trixie were in uniform, having returned from district calls, and Delia saw the latter eyeing Patsy with a slightly curious expression before flicking an unexpected glance at where Delia sat. Delia fumbled quickly with her cutlery and hoped her gaze towards the redhead had not been spotted, or read as anything other than friendly concern. Monica Joan, ever ignorant of her vow of poverty, complained shamelessly aloud.

‘I do not think that Christ would begrudge our eggs being devilled.’ The elderly nun pleaded. ‘For to consume them flavourless is a waste of his gifts; of taste, and of chickens!’

Sister Julienne didn’t look up from her task. ‘They are not flavourless, Sister, they are fresh from Fred’s own chickens. Though I admit, Mrs B’s holiday is proving a little... _tougher_ , than anticipated.’

At her words, the congregated women eyed the stack of rock cakes currently weighing down the end leaf of the table. The pool of afternoon sunlight they sat in could not detract from the fact that their currants were charred specks on their truly boulder-like surface.

‘It’s been a while since I’ve baked,’ Sister Winifred offered apologetically. ‘I tend to just do rice crispy cakes with the children. It doesn’t involve any actual… baking.’

The old table creaked ominously and Trixie stifled a giggle that was immediately caught by Sister Mary Cynthia, the old friends unable to keep from looking to each other at the unfortunate timing. Delia caught sight of Patsy pressing her lips firmly together and keeping her eyes even more firmly on her plate.

‘Maybe we could use them to block out that draught from the chapel?’

It had come out of her mouth without first passing fully through Delia’s brain. She clapped a hand over her mouth as if to catch the words before they were heard. Patsy’s eyes were definitely on her now, as were everyone else’s. Delia lowered her cutlery, aghast at her own cheek in front of a room full of nuns.

‘I’m so sorry. Sister, I-‘

After a beat, Sister Winifred erupted with a hoot of laughter, and thanks be to Nightingale, so did everyone else.

* * *

Bodiless pelvises and complex birth presentations seemed to be floating before her eyes by time the evening drew in. Sisters Winifred and Monica Joan were glued _to Dixon of Dock Green_ on the television, but the sensible antics of fictional bobby did nothing to still Delia’s restless mind. She slipped quietly from the sofa, and in a bid to avoid her books and the quiet absence of Patsy, set about busying herself with unnecessary chores, polishing already shining surfaces and dusting where no dust lay. Sister Julienne paused to watch her tidying the perfectly presentable telephone station but said nothing. The Welshwoman was sorting unclaimed post on the hall letter tray when the familiar scent of lavender and carbolic soap pulled the corners of her mouth into an involuntary smile. A slightly sheepish-looking redhead had found her.

‘Alright, old thing? Patsy asked softly, leaning against the wood panelling of the wall to watch the welsh woman at her task. Beneath her cardigan her shoulders were slumped, a button had been worried loose by agitated fingers. Still she cut an imposing figure in the shadowy hallway.

‘Something for you, Nurse Mount.’ Delia offered with a gentle smile, passing the tall woman an envelope edged in blue and white. 'It Might be something for that birthday of yours...' She added nonchalantly, shuffling through the rest of the correspondence.

'I very much doubt it.' Patsy sighed. Beneath the thick fringe, dark brows contracted in confusion as Patsy slipped the letter into her pocket without looking at it.

‘Gosh, if I ever had an airmail I think I might frame it!’ 

‘Well if the occasion should arise I shall be sure to send you one.’ Patsy replied flatly.

‘Oh, Pats don’t, that would mean you’d be abroad without me! I wouldn’t want that.’

Patsy dropped her eyes to the floor and when she raised them they were full of a warmth that had been missing all afternoon.

‘No. Me neither, Deels. Not for a minute.'

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edited about thirty typos since first uploading, sorry about that!


	17. Patsy Mount is Positively Bowled Over

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm just going to stop promising any kind of regular upload schedule. Here's this!

‘Good morning troops.’ Phyllis strode into the clinic room, taking up her usual position and surveying the nurses and nuns gathered around the wide table with a stern eye. ‘Glad to see you all on time. Miracles do indeed happen…’

Trixie bristled slightly and Patsy and Barbara exchanged a knowing smile as they packed their instruments into their bags. Trixie’s dedication to perfecting her eyeliner before coming down to start work was a source of constant irritation to Nurse Crane. The late September day had dawned mild and clear, but the sun had clearly done nothing to thaw out the senior nurse this morning. She flipped irritatedly through her Filofax and the small notebook in her hand.

‘Busy day today. First call, Mr Sheridan of Winch Street.’ She began.

‘Oh, I think that might be yesterdays list, Phyllis – Nurse Crane…’ Patsy’s interjection was out of her mouth before she realised. It came to a juddering halt as Phyllis fixed her with a stony glare.

‘Thank you Nurse Mount, but alas it is _not_ yesterday’s list. Sisters Winifred and Mary Cynthia both called to Mr Sheridan’s yesterday and returned without having managed to change his dressings.’

The nuns in question fidgeted uneasily on the other side of the table. Sister Winfred bravely attempted an explanation.

‘He’s absolutely refused our care. I’ve tried speaking to him, all about the national health and how there won’t be any charge-‘

‘A most value use of nursing time, I’m sure.’ Tutted Phyllis, scribbling something into her notebook and adding in low tones: ‘But then, you know what they about wanting a job done properly…’

‘I’ll do it.’ Patsy risked the second interruption, in haste to make amends for her first one. Phyllis eyed her with lips pursed and the tall nurse gave her what she hoped was a winning smile. ‘That is, if you would like me to, Nurse Crane.’

‘Fine. Mr Sheridan of Pump Street, dressing change, Nurse Mount. You can take the rest of the calls for Mosely Street and Waterworks Avenue while you’re there.’ Phyllis thrust the card detailing the calls in Patsy’s general direction before moving on through her list.

‘Now then, two house calls on Winch Street. Pressure sores for Mr Gross and a persistent complaint of the venereal kind for a Mrs Walker. Any takers?’

 

* * *

 

Pump Street had once housed a factory producing machinery parts for waterworks and pump houses across the south east. The building still remained, but had long since been repurposed into a row of smart, narrow houses, their walls fashioned from the same stone at the cobbles. Patsy dismounted her bike outside number sixteen, relieved to escape the bone-shaking the aforementioned cobbles had given her on the ride along the wide street. She tapped on a smartly painted door, and it sprung open almost at once to reveal a small, glamourous women in her early sixties.

‘Good morning nurse, I thought that must be you, I could hear that Nonnatus bike rattling up the street.’ She smiled, her accent softly East End.

‘I’m sure you could hear my instruments rattling from a mile away, Mrs Sheridan.’ Patsy replied, returning the smile and unstrapping her nursing bag from the back of the bicycle. ‘I only hope I haven’t smashed them to pieces.’

‘Well I don’t know if you shall need them nurse. Two of them, the nuns, called yesterday and he won’t let anyone see to him.’ She led Patsy into the house, her turned back revealing her elaborately twisted hairstyle. Her once fair locks were streaked with grey but were nevertheless Trixie Franklin standards of immaculate.

Mr Sheridan was in propped up in one of two armchairs that took up most of the front room. A small fire was burning in the grate behind him, and yet he seemed pale and cold, even with a thick woollen blanket stretched across his lap.

‘Good morning Mr Sheridan. I’m here to see to your dressings.’ Patsy chimed brightly, despositing her bag onto the floor so she could remove her cape. Mrs Sheridan appeared at her elbow to take the garment, almost curtsying before disappearing into the hall to hang it up.

Mr Sheridan, gave a grunt and a wary look. Patsy noticed the sheen on his pale forehead, almost as grey as hair plastered limply onto it, quite without colour despite the heat of the fire and the blanket.

‘Don’t need you to. I’m fine. I told them yesterday.’

Patsy didn’t respond for a moment, bending to retrieve a pack of sterile dressings from her bag. From the corner of her eye she took in the tie drawn up tight to his clammy neck, and the stiff lace up shoes on his feet, despite the fact that one leg was quite obviously held out at an awkward angle. He looked deeply uncomfortable.

‘Yes I heard about that. Sister Winifred is very sorry to have left you without changing that dressing.’

‘I don’t need it changing, I am _fine_.’ Mr Sheridan muttered through a clenched jaw.

‘Let the nurse see to you, Frank. She’s come all this way.’ Mrs Sheridan had reappeared and perched on the edge of the armchair opposite her husband. Patsy straightened up, dressings, bandage and a pair of scissors in one hand, and a bottle of antiseptic in the other.

‘Along the cobbles of Pump Street, no less.’ She smiled, but Mr Sheridan did not return it, his eyes flicking warily from the nurse to his anxious wife. Patsy changed tack, pulling a coffee table close to the man and depositing her supplies onto it.

‘Well now, first things first, let’s make you a little more comfortable. These shoes won’t allow for any swelling, you’d be much better off in a comfortable pair of slippers.’ Patsy smoothed her skirt behind her knees as she knelt in front of him, the action seemed to make him wince in readiness.

‘I’ve told him that, nurse, but he won’t have it.’ Mrs Sheridan told her, leaning over a uniformed shoulder. ‘He’s always well-dressed, my Frank.’

‘Well-dressed is all well and good, but it’s healing that we want at the moment.’ Patsy replied, reaching to turn up the man’s trouser cuff to give her better access to his shoelaces.

‘Leave me be, I’m _alright_!’ Mr Sheridan suddenly sprung to life, jerking away from Patsy’s touch so violently that her knocked her backwards from her crouched position.

‘Oh!’ Patsy’s long arms flailed to find purchase but her fingers slipped across the velvety material of the chair and she fell back heavily into the coffee table, sending supplies flying. She felt a sharp pain in her hand as she reached back to break her fall before she landed on Mrs Sheridan.

‘Oh, _Frank_!’ The little woman cried, springing to her feet. ‘Why won’t you let them help you?’

Mr Sheridan looked down in dismay, he grey features etched with remorse.

‘Nurse, I’m sorry Nurse – I never meant – I only-‘ He stammered, his pale lips shaking for form words.

‘It’s quite alright, Mr Sheridan. Mrs Sheridan I am _perfectly_ fine.’ Patsy caught her breath and hastily got to her feet. She righted the coffee table and hastily wiped the smear of red she had left upon it with the now unravelled bandage. ‘No, please don’t touch those Mrs Sheridan, some of those instruments are very sharp-‘

The fretting woman looked up from where she was trying to gather the spilled supplies and instruments, and Patsy took them from her and tipped the whole lot unceremoniously into her bag in a way that would make Nurse Crane’s skin crawl even from three miles away.

‘Perhaps you could get my cape?’ She asked calmly. Mrs Sheridan nodded and vanished into the hallway once more. Patsy dug her smarting hand into the maroon of her cardigan before giving the mortified man one last reassuring smile before she followed his wife, ‘Just a few instruments need replacing, nothing to worry about Mr Sheridan.’

The tall nurse ducked slightly to allow the petite Mrs Sheridan to hang her cape across her shoulders, before exiting hastily back onto the street. She blinked in the sunlight, and gingerly drew her stinging hand from her armpit. As she had suspected, the dressing scissors had fallen open and delivered a neat gash to the heel of her palm as she had toppled backwards. The red of her cardigan has hidden most of the damage from the Sheridans, but now the cool air stung the two inch cut like harsh antiseptic.

‘Oh the damned antiseptic!’ She whispered aloud. She had spilt half of it on the rug as she fell. Nurse Crane would be fuming. Through the thin net curtains the thin figure of Mrs Sheridan was clear, hovering anxiously over her husband, whilst Patsy fumbled with the straps of her cape before giving up on the ungainly garment altogether. Wrapping it around her handlebars to cushion her cut, Patsy hooked a stockinged leg over the bike frame and pushed off somewhat tentatively in the direction of Nonnatus. The third nurse to return from the Sheridan's without delivering treatment, she was certainly in no rush to get home...

 

* * *

 

 

‘Didn’t expect you back so soon, Nurse Mount.’ Came a voice from the hallway. Patsy jumped slightly before realising it was Delia, her eyes twinkling in a smile as Patsy reached to hang up her cape. ‘Welcome home.’

‘Thank goodness, for a moment I thought you were Nurse Crane.’ Patsy breathed in relief. Delia crinkled her nose in objection.

‘Thanks very much. Phyllis is still out at clinic, I’m sorry to disappoint.’

Patsy would have poked out her tongue if her boarding school etiquette wasn’t so firmly ingrained. ‘Well, you’ll be less of a disappointment if you could fashion one a spot of lunch.’

Naturally, Patsy had insisted on seeing to her own injury, and so Delia had instead busied herself restocking her tall nurse’s bag, and crafting two enormous sandwiches for the pair of them. Patsy ate hers whilst wearing one enormous yellow glove from the kitchen sink. ‘One doesn’t want pickle in a fresh wound, Delia.’

After the sandwiches had been quickly devoured, they found themselves shoulder to shoulder at the sink, Patsy now wearing two yellow gloves and Delia armed with the tea towel at the draining board. They passed a slow chain of bubbly plates and cups between them, contented, as they often were, just to be in one another’s presence for a few moments between shifts.

‘How is Trixie?’ Asked Delia, running the chequered tea towel across the pale green of the Nonnatus teacups. Her tone was neutral, but the Patsy knew at once as to what she referred.

‘Quite well I think, all things considered. She was in the clinic room on time this morning anyway.’

Delia nodded before adding softly. ‘You were right to move your bottles into my room then. How long had you known?’

Patsy sighed and let her fingertips rest in the warmth of the water whilst she considered her answer. ‘I knew she didn’t need the temptation of having them around. Somehow a full-blown addiction didn’t quite cross my mind.’

‘You don’t think of young people being alcoholics. You think it’s just old men in pubs all day, or that woman we used to see in Mario’s café sometimes.’ Delia pondered aloud.

‘Yes.’ Patsy passed her another plate, her eyes fixed on the dishwater, and Delia grimaced at the sudden closure of the conversation. She knew that discretion ran through Patsy like a stick of rock, and the Welshwoman silently chastised her own nosiness.

‘Sorry Pats, I’m speaking out of turn. Let’s talk about something else.’

‘Hmm? Like what?’ The redhead asked, looking up from her task.

‘Hmm, well. How about the fact that we haven’t managed our slice of domestic bliss in _weeks_.’

Patsy’s mouth hooked into a smile reserved for Delia. ‘Is this not all the domestic bliss you could possibly dream of, Busby?’

‘As charming at the sight of you in a pair of marigolds is, that’s not what I meant. Our _breakfasts_ Pats.’

‘I know what you meant, sweetheart.’ Patsy’s voice dropped low as she uttered the endearment. ‘How about we compare schedules this evening when we’re both back and see if we can’t squeeze a secret crumpet in somewhere.’

 

* * *

 

Despite her years of practice, Patsy’s bandage began to come loose almost as soon as she pulled her bicycle away from the shed. She slowed her pedalling as she mused turning back or continuing on to the Sheridan’s as it was, just as a nearby bell rang out its announcement of custom. A stout woman in swirling paisley appeared on the step of the haberdashers, her face turned up to enjoy the bright sunlight.

‘Mrs Gee, what marvellous timing you have.’ Patsy called out, turning her bike in the direction of the shopfront.

‘Oh hello, Patsy dear. I’m just catching the last of this nice weather.’ Mrs Gee smiled as the bicycle came to halt at her side. ‘What can I do for you?’

‘I was rather hoping you might be able to procure me a safety pin.’ Patsy replied, standing astride the bicycle to keep the heavy bag from pulling it over.

‘Oh! What on earth have you done to yourself?’ Mrs Gee frowned at the injury as she fumbled through her pockets.

‘Only a cut,’ Patsy deflected, as a multitude of thimbles and scraps of ribbon appeared from the woman’s many pockets. ‘It seems dressings are not quite so easily secured when they are on your own hand. Ah! That would be perfect, Mrs Gee, thanks awfully.’

The haberdasher had triumphantly produced a shining pin and gently secured the loose bandage around the younger woman’s tender palm.

‘You’re very welcome, and it’s _Violet_ , honestly. Who are you off to next, now that you’ve two working hands?’ The shopkeeper asked. ‘Oh yes, old George. Lovely man. I knew his wife quite well, once upon a time.’

‘Oh?’ Asked Patsy politely as she readied herself to set off once more.

‘She was a hat maker across the way, our trades overlapped nicely.’ Violet nodded. ‘She’d purchase her trimmings from me and I’d send my ladies across to her whenever they fancied a hat to go with a frock I’d put together. She was always so glamorous for Poplar. George used to call her his beauty, he’s very much a gentleman is George Sheridan. Holds her on a pedestal even now.’

Patsy listened intently, her mind flicking between the uncomfortably well-dressed Mr Sheridan and his glamorous, anxious wife.

‘Thank you, Violet, you’ve been very helpful.’

‘Not a problem love. Ride safely now, and send my love to George.’

 

* * *

 

Nurse Mount’s second visit to the Sheridan’s went rather differently to the first. She had tried bright and cheery Nurse Mount, and she had tried business-like, assertive Nurse Mount. This time however, she decided to be a little more like Patsy.

‘Hello again Nurse. I’m dreadful sorry about earlier, he didn’t meant to-’ The stream of apologies began before Patsy had even swung the repacked bag from the back of the bicycle. Patsy halted it with a warning tilt of her head.

‘All is forgiven Mrs Sheridan, in exchange for a cup of tea.’ She smiled and the petite woman nodded gratefully before gesturing for the nurse to come inside. After ensuring that Mrs Sheridan was safely ensconced in the kitchen Patsy made her way into the small sitting room for the second time that day, stooping briefly in the hallway to collect a pair of sheepskin slippers from the shoe rack.

‘Nurse.’ Acknowledged Mr Sheridan from his chair as she entered. He was as uncomfortable looking as before, only now a look of sheepishness had replaced his irritability.

‘Good afternoon, Mr Sheridan.’ Patsy replied, shutting the door with a firm click behind her, and placing her bag on the spare armchair. She crossed the room and pulled the curtains to, making the room quite private before she turned to face her patient.

‘Well then George, I think you rather owe me a favour after earlier don’t you?’ Patsy asked, raising a pencilled eyebrow. ‘And your favour to me can be not making me go back to my superiors to tell them I’ve called here twice and still not treated you. Now you can keep the tie if you really must, but I insist you change into these slippers.’

The man’s eyes drifted uncertainly to the door.

‘I’ve given her very precise instructions on how I like my tea,’ Patsy lowered her voice and added ‘and also to not disturb us until we are quite finished and presentable.’

At last, a little of the tension in Mr Sheridan’s shoulders seem to lessen, the stiff detachment in his face shifted into a wince of pain.

‘Its not pretty nurse.’

‘Don’t you worry about that, I’ve most certainly seen worse.’

 

* * *

 

That night in Trixie’s room, the four young nurses were spread out (evenly distributed between _two_ beds, having learnt their lesson some month previous) in Trixie and Patsy’s room. The scent of four steaming mugs of Horlicks mingled with the room’s usual aroma of tobacco, hairspray and Chanel, as the events of their days were shared.

‘Fancy him suffering a wound like that for nearly a week just because he didn’t want his wife to see.’ Mused Barbara in disbelief, sitting cross legged at the foot of Paty’s bed. ‘The poor man.’

From the other bed, a figure bearing a striking resemblance to Trixie but covered in a bizarrely lumpy facemask replied, ‘It’s an awful price to pay for vanity, and that’s coming from me.’

‘It’s not vanity it’s… dignity.’ Spoke Delia softly from beside her. ‘Perhaps a little fear. It can be difficult to be open about being in pain, to admit that you need a little help.’ She flicked the smallest glance towards where Patsy was reclined against her pillows before adding with a shrug, ‘We see it in male surgical all the time.’

Barbara nodded thoughtfully. ‘Well that must be where you gained the skills to deal with him Patsy. Well done all the same.’

‘Thank you Barbara.’ Patsy replied quietly, her eyes on Delia, and her heart swelling just a fraction beneath her flannel pyjamas.

Trixie raised a steaming mug into the air. ‘Hear hear. To the nurses of male surgical, past _and_ present.’


	18. Delia Busby and the Babysham of Courage.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The gals finally get some quality time together, and Delia comes to a decision.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Remember back in chapter 9 when I said 'I think there's about three more chapters left for 1961?' Well, welcome to chapter 18. I think there's about three chapters left for 1961....

Patsy’s much dreaded birthday fell exactly a month before Christmas. Every year as the colder months approached, Delia had to bargain with Patsy as to which occasion she was allowed to ‘make far too much fuss about,’ (as the latter so graciously put it). Setting aside the unfortunate six months that had seen Delia missing all celebrations and half her memories, this year would mark their third festive period as sweethearts and fourth as friends. Every year Patsy had chosen Christmas, so it came as some surprise to the Welshwoman when she suddenly announced-

‘Birthday.’

Delia sputtered into her morning tea. They had been basking in the quiet solitude of an early breakfast, winter sun filtering through the window and two sets of ankles wrapped together under the kitchen table, confident in their privacy at the unsociable hour, when Patsy had broken the silence.

‘Sorry?’ Delia asked, wiping a drop of Typhoo from the tip of her nose.

‘You may make an awful fuss of me,’ Patsy explained, reaching for the butter dish, ‘on my birthday.’

Delia’s face stretched into a broad smile. ‘Really? But you always pick Christmas.’

‘Yes well, I’m not sure with both of us under one roof there will be much time for… us, at all.’ Patsy sighed. ‘There’s no quiet time at all in midwifery, Deels, and we always end up with some kind of parish crisis on our hands, curtesy of a disorganised curate or an overly ambitious nativity.’ She jabbed the butter knife in the general direction of the vicarage.

‘Alright!’ Delia laughed, reaching out to pluck the knife from Patsy’s hand before her gesticulations became any more irate. ‘Birthday is it then, if you haven’t taken someone’s eye out with the jam spoon by then.’

Delia began buttering her own toast but something troubled her. She flicked a questioning gaze up at her companion. ‘Do you think we’ll really see less of each other over Christmas than usual, now that I’m here?’

‘In the mist of all that chaos, having to find excuses for _both_ of us to get out of here, just so we can meet up in a café a mile away to exchange presents, or spend any time at all with you before you go back to your parents...’ Patsy sighed and seem to draw into herself, tucking her long legs beneath her chair, away from Delia. ‘As Chummy would say, it’s all just bally unfair.’

Delia nodded sympathetically. ‘It’s alright though, Pats, I get your birthday this time instead.’ She smiled and, eager to change the subject lest their rare alone time should be tinged with sadness, turned the conversation to medicine. As each month passed she was finding work on the male surgical ward less and less rewarding, but case stories from Patsy, Phyllis and the others buoyed her; happy reminders that nursing made such a long-lasting difference. As she poured the last of the tea Delia became distinctly aware of Patsy’s gaze upon her.

‘What is it?’

‘This birthday… You’re not to make too much of a fuss.’ Patsy warned sternly, but it was met with only an amused smile. ‘ _Delia_ -‘

‘Oh Pats, why won’t you let me spoil you just for one day?’ The Welshwoman sighed, with a pleading tilt of her head.

The movement caused sleek, dark tresses to fall over one shoulder and Patsy felt herself flush slightly at the sight of it. She felt postively Victorian, scandalised over bare ankles, but it had been so long since she had seen Delia with her hair unpinned and without a starched collar in sight, that Patsy wondered if an exposed ankle might just be the undoing of her. She straightened in her chair, dragging her eyes back to her tea cup.

‘It’s only a birthday Delia, it’s not like I’ve done anything worth celebrating.’

‘ _You_ are worth celebrating.’ Intoned Delia, firmly. ‘Now swing your legs back over here before I use your butter knife against you.’

All too soon the hallway clock had struck six, and the pair had hastily cleared away all evidence of their breakfast before the footsteps of the Sisters could be heard from above. Delia had scurried off to get ready for work and Patsy had tiptoed back upstairs to slip back into bed.

‘Oh, Deels, before you go,’ Patsy had whispered just before the Welshwoman’s door closed. ‘Trixie wants to go out to the pub tonight after work, will you come?’

‘To the pub?’ Delia whispered back, pulling her door open a fraction. ‘Is that a good idea?’

‘I know, but it’s just for a soft drink. I think just to prove that she can.’

Delia nodded and reached out a hand across the dim hallway. ‘Alright. I’ll see you tonight.’

They squeezed a silent goodbye before parting to begin their separate days. Delia’s door closed with a click and she paused for a moment to take in the now so familiar room. Although only slightly more homely than her nurses’ home residence had been, it carried with it a promise. A promise that every night she would come home and there, just across the corridor, would be Patsy. She was certain that she would have lived in shoe box, if it could give her a certainty like that. 

Pulling herself from her daze Delia dressed quickly in her hospital uniform, slipped a bundle of midwifery notes into her bag, and headed for work. The bus ride to the London was only short, but she tucked her feet beneath her seat crossed at the ankles, and imagined that she was still sat with Patsy. Two sets of legs entwined beneath the breakfast table, for just a little longer, before she donned the starched cap and became Nurse Busby once more.

* * *

 

After an agonisingly detailed (and yet deeply satisfying) stock take of the Nonnatus medical supplies, Nurse Mount spent most of the day in clinic. First on antenatal checks, and later on the vaccination queue, for which she was teamed with Sister Mary Cynthia. Sister Julienne had shot them an amused glance across the clinic; they certainly made quite a pair, the young nun’s wimple barely reaching Patsy’s shoulder as they stood together before the squirming line of reluctant eight and nine year olds. Mary Cynthia had given her a worried glance as the children scrabbled and bickered in the queue, but several of the boys recognised the tall nurse as their cubs leader, and once Patsy had assigned several ‘queue monitors’ they soon had an efficient production line in progress.

‘Ere, Nurse.’ Piped up Gregory Palmer as the last of the children headed home, rubbing their vaccinated arms and casting their classmate mutinous rather glances. ‘Do I get a badge for this or what?’

‘How about a midget gem and the satisfaction of a job well done?’ Offered Patsy, extending the small bag of sugary bribes with a wink.

‘That’ll do I guess.’ The boy shrugged, taking two before racing off after his friends.

‘Satisfaction is one thing,’ admitted Mary Cynthia, packing no less than fifty used vials into a box, ‘but I think I could do with a cup of tea.’

They arrived home to find most of the household gathered in the living room in various shades of exhaustion from the day’s work. The pair of them slumped onto the sofa, glad at the sight of Sister Winifred doing the rounds with the tea pot.

‘Not for me thank you,’ Said Trixie, glancing up from where she had been watching Phyllis and Delia’s deep discussion over a copy of the Lancet with amusement. ‘You have one hour to get ready darlings, or I’m leaving without you.’

Patsy groaned as Trixie got to her feet, brushing manicured hands down her uniform.

‘I’ve only just sat down, Trix.’ She protested, gratefully accepting a teacup from Sister Winifred.

‘Tough,’ Replied the blonde with a grin. ‘I’m on call from ten so you’d best get a move on if you want to make the most of me.’

* * *

 

The Manor Arms (Trixie’s choice) was bustling with weekend drinkers, and yet all Patsy’s doubt as to the suitability of the outing faded as she watched Trixie weave her way back to their booth, two drinks in hand. Women touched her arm to lean in compliments regarding her outfit and blonde curls, and the men, loud and somewhat swaying as they were, parted with over exaggerated bows and chivalry to let her pass.

‘She belongs in a crowd.’ Mused Patsy quietly, and beside her Delia nodded in agreement, running a gentle thumb across the knee of her slacks beneath the table. After a tumultuous several months, it was good to see her roommate back in the environment she clearly thrived in. Barbara followed in her wake, in a new dress and with small blush in her cheeks as she carefully carried another two bubbling glasses through the busy pub.

‘Two lemonades for those of us on call this evening,’ announced Trixie as she delivered the glasses onto the table. ‘One with a dash of lime, very daring.’ She gave Barbara a wink as she drew level.

‘And two Babychams for those with the night off.’ The brunette added, sliding the two glasses of sparkling perry across to Patsy and Delia. ‘Gosh, it’s awfully crowded up at that bar, Trixie had to practically sit on it before we could get served.’

‘A sacrifice I was willing to make.’ Shrugged Trixie nonchantly. ‘Though I thought I was going to have to get Barbara to use her womanly charms on him if he took much longer.’

‘Stop it.’ Blushed Barbara, elbowing her gently in embarrassment. ‘You can take Patsy next time, she can just reach over the bar and serve herself.’

‘I am _not_ that tall, thank you Barbara.’ Patsy replied with a half-smile before Trixie led them in all in a toast, to themselves.

‘Well, now that we’ve got beverages, atmosphere and our devastingly good looks, all we need is some scandalous gossip. Any offerings?’

Delia felt Patsy’s thigh stiffen beside her own as Trixie looked expectantly round at them all.

‘I’ve got some news.’ Delia offered quickly. ‘Not gossip as such, but… news. After a lot of thinking it over, I’ve come to a rather big decision, partly inspired by all of you actually.’ She took a breath before adding, ‘I’ve decided to leave surgical nursing and retrain, starting in January… as a midwife.’

Delia took a steadying sip of her drink as she felt three pairs of eyes upon her. No one spoke for several long moments after her announcement. Eventually Barbara broke the silence, followed by Trixie and lastly, Patsy.

‘Gosh.’

‘Well I never saw that coming.’

‘I’m quite literally blown away by this news.’

Delia looked round at them in confusion. ‘You all know this already don’t you?’

They burst out laughing.

‘You’re a bunch of rotters.’

‘Delia for the last two months, if you haven’t had your nose in a book you’ve been swapping back catalogues of Midwifery Monthly with Phyllis. I’m not sure what else we could have possibly thought.’ Trixie wiped a tear of mirth from her eye, careful not a smudge her mascara.

‘That was just speculative revision! I hadn’t decided until last week.’ Delia protested.

‘If I’m honest, I knew you were going to do it since the night you delivered the Dawley’s baby over the telephone.’ Barbara shrugged.

‘After being warned by Nurse Crane to give no advice, no less.’ Smiled Patsy across her glass, trying to keep the pride from her voice.

Trixie nodded in agreement. ‘You caught the bug, even down the telephone line.’

Delia looked round at them all and couldn’t help but smile. ‘Well you’ve rather stolen my thunder. I don’t suppose any of you fancy telling my mam for me as well?’

‘Not likely.’ Replied Patsy with a rather unladylike snort into her Babycham. Trixie chuckled and flicked a sympathetic look back to the apprehensive Welshwoman.

‘I think we’ll let you have all thunder on that one, sweetie.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I cringed slightly with my use of 'sweethearts' but not even Delia knows what to call them, so how am I a humble fanfic-er supposed to know better...
> 
> I know that some other AO3-ers have calculated a more sensible estimate of Patsy's DOB based on when Hong Kong fell, but I only have a couple of months left of 1961 and had to just squeeze it in. I could see a younger Patsy just writing off the entire festive season, not wanting to partake, so I've gone with this.
> 
> Thanks for sticking with me while I fill the wait for season 7 with fluff and nonsense!


	19. Patsy Mount Doesn't Want A Fuss

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The morning of Patsy's birthday has arrived, but she doesn't want a fuss. Did she mention that? She doesn't want a fuss alright Delia? Got that? Good.
> 
> I've had to split this as it became a mammoth of a chapter. Fluff ensues.

‘And then Delia will keep her out of the house for the rest of the afternoon so that we can get everything else in place.’ Trixie concluded, looking up from her list from where it lay on the dark wood counter of the telephone station. By this point it was really less of a list and more of a Phyllis-standard itinerary, Patsy’s birthday planned out hour by hour. Even being on call had not deterred the blonde from summoning the others to her post to ensure that everyone knew their times and duties.

‘I shall be back from night shift around seven tomorrow morning,’ Confirmed Delia, attempting to tug a cardigan over the ungainly puffed sleeves of her uniform, ‘so I’ll be conscious again by midday.’

‘Look at you, soldiering on post-night shift.’ Trixie winked, placing a neat tick next to Delia’s section of the plans. She had been sure to set aside several hours where the two could get away, under the guise of Trixie needing her to keep Patsy away from preparations.

‘It’s my own fault, I booked the day off but made the mistake of letting matron know that I had plans, so naturally she’s put me on the night shift beforehand.’ The Welshwoman sighed.

‘What a cad she is. I’m sure we could wangle Barbara here out of clinic if you wanted her to take over Patsy-minding instead?’ Trixie raised her eyebrows innocently as the nurse in question looked up from she had been leaning against the telephone station.

‘Oh, well yes I could come back after morning clinic.’ Barbara suggested. ‘We’d have to run it by sister Julienne of course?’

Delia’s mouth fumbled for a refusal for a moment before she managed, ‘Oh no, I’m sure I’ll be fine, gets me out of bed anyway.’ Beneath the starched uniform her stomach clenched as the thought that her own particular plans for Patsy’s birthday might be scuppered by the others good intentions. ‘I’d like to, honestly. I’ve got the afternoon planned.’

‘Lovely.’ Trixie hid a knowing smile behind her teacup as she watched the brunette fumble for her fob watch. ‘So Barbara, that just leaves you in charge of the paper crafts as previously discussed, alright?’

Barbara nodded and gave a wince, 'I do hope she's not going to be too mad at us for this, she said she didn't want a fuss. She said that quite a lot actually...'

'Nonsense, this is all very low-key.' Deflected Trixie with a wave of a pink-nailed hand. (Not strictly uniform, but subtle enough to have evaded Sister Julienne's notice.)

‘I best get a move on. I’ll see you tomorrow, Trixie, Barbara.’ Delia bobbed her head in goodbye before hurrying to fetch her coat and scarf from the stand.

‘Have her back by six!’ Trixie’s tinkling call followed after her.

Tucking her starched cap into an inside pocket, Delia chided herself for nearly letting her own plans for Patsy’s birthday be ruined by her complaining. She pulled open the heavy front door and descended into the lamplit street, the first flecks of drizzle flashing in the orange streetlight. The pressure of secrecy was grating on the welshwoman. Trying to pass off her involvement in the celebrations as nothing more than a distraction whilst Patsy’s friends readied a surprise for her, when really she hoped their afternoon would be  the main event of Patsy’s day. Just a few hours to try and celebrate her love as much as possible, before returning her to Nonnatus and the usual facades once more. It had better not rain. 

Delia stuck out a gloved hand as the yellow glow of a bus approached, and a minute later she and were worries were gone, rumbling northwards through London streets.

* * *

 

‘Where on earth are we going Delia?’ Patsy called after her sweetheart’s retreating back, which was  swiftly disappearing round a London street corner. Up until now she had been having a rather lovely, leisurely birthday. She had not booked it off, her interest in celebrating not being great enough to warrant such effort, a quiet evening with Delia would have sufficed. But somehow the day’s rota had come back mysteriously blank, and now Delia seemed to have other plans altogether. ‘Delia! I’m wearing entirely the wrong shoes for this!’

She had been woken that morning, not by the alarm clock, but by a uniformed Trixie bearing tea, toast, and pink wafers on a tray. Balanced alongside  the breakfast sat a small stack of cards, a square parcel that could only be a paperback, and a bunch of flowers in a slim vase.

‘No point in getting out of bed when you’ve the day off.’ Trixie had winked. ‘The sweet Williams and the book are from Barbara, and the _erica carnea_ are from Sister Monica Joan. They wanted to deliver them themselves but I thought you might want a quiet morning.’

Patsy smiled gratefully at the lack of fuss and sat up against the headboard to take the tray, rubbing sleep from her eyes. ‘Thank you, Trixie.’

‘You are very welcome. And _this_ is from me. Happy birthday, Patsy.’ She slid a small, neatly wrapped parcel from her tunic pocket and perched on the bedspread as Patsy took it gently.

‘You didn’t have to get me anything, old thing…’

The object beneath the paper felt cool and slightly heavy. Patsy shot a glance up at the blonde’s expectant smile before gently turning it over to run a finger beneath the seam of the wrapping. She let out a small ‘Oh’ as the contents slid neatly into the palm of her hand.

It was a compact, the two mirrors encased in smooth, coloured enamel, and each exterior criss-crossed with brassy strands in a design that was slightly Deco. The delicate clasp and hinge shone as Patsy turned it over in disbelief. It was strikingly similar to the broken compact that had travelled back with her from Hong Kong to England so many years ago. The one that had been her mother’s, and which now nestled in a battered box of precious things beneath the bed the two friends were sat upon.

‘Oh, Trixie. Thank you, it’s really… _very_ lovely.’ Patsy trailed off and resorted to just nodding her thanks, untidy fringe bobbing as she blinked rather rapidly.

‘It’s quite alright. I’m glad you like it.’ Trixie gave her hand a squeeze with a slightly watery smile of her own. ‘I best get to clinic but, you just sit here and enjoy your tea and your biscuits and… have a happy birthday, sweetie.’

The midwife pressed a kiss to Patsy’s cheek as she got off the bed, before heading downstairs, leaving a trailing scent of powder and perfume behind her. After admiring the compact some more, Patsy had dabbed her eyes and done as instructed. Sipping her tea and eating her toast, she paused occasionally to open each of her cards as the sound of the morning routines filtered through the window and up from the floors below.

A card with a sweet religious blessing was signed by each of the sisters, and one featuring a stylized woman with huge red curls was signed from Barbara and Tom. A small, square floral number bored Phyllis’s formal greeting, whilst anything from Delia or any member of Patsy’s family remained absent. The other parcel Trixie had delivered was indeed a book, a collection of short stories by Daphne Du Maurier with a striking blue cover that Patsy remembered admiring in a bookshop with Barbara several months ago.

Eventually she had left her bed to dress (a soft woollen, to brave the draughts of Nonnatus house) and rehome the flowers to the windowsill. Tucking her hair into a high ponytail and her new book beneath her arm Patsy had ventured downstairs, pleased to find she was greeted only by a polite good morning from Sister Mary Cynthia, and a gracious (slightly jammy) smile from Sister Monica Joan. After making more tea, Patsy had settled into Phyllis’s favourite arm chair in the living room, morning sun falling across her lap as she opened the book, and thought that perhaps birthdays were not so bad after all.

Now though, all such remnants of relaxation were frankly absent. Delia had awoken impossibly bright for someone who had returned from a surgical ward night shift less than five hours previous. She had delivered a kiss to a surprised cheek as Patsy reclined in her armchair, and before she had known it, Patsy had found herself dragged into the cold and onto a double decker bus heading west. The Welshwoman clearly had a plan, though she was not telling what it was.

‘You promised no fuss, Delia.’ Patsy had reminded her while the shorter woman hummed with excitement in the seat next to her, as they trundled up through Limehouse and on towards the more affluent Whitechapel. The brunette had simply grinned in reply.

As Patsy rounded another corner she opened her mouth to call out to Delia again. Really, birthdays were supposed to be relaxing and yet after an abrupt disembarking she had been pursuing this madwoman through bustling shopping streets of Aldgate for a good ten minutes. She was wearing heels, she hadn’t planned for these kind of antics, and where on earth was Delia in such a hurry to get to?

Up ahead, the woman in question had stopped and raised an arm in a triumphant indication of where she brought them to. Patsy looked up at the red letters of the signage high above Delia’s beaming figure. No, surely this was a mistake. Or a very strange joke.

‘Delia, do you really mean to say that you’ve just dragged me halfway across east London, on my birthday, to come to Woolworths!?’

* * *

 

They stood, a few minutes later, in a rear corner of the large shop, behind a rather dusty display of garden supplies and hanging basket liners. Patsy had been sceptical as Delia pulled her through the quietly bustling front counters, increasingly confused as she had tugged her past the pick and mix and make up displays, and downright dubious of Delia’s sanity as she began to lead them down the aisles of hosepipes and DIY equipment. And yet now, standing on a clearly little-used aisle at the very back of the shop, she realised the young woman’s genius.

‘Pictures.’ She whispered, looking across at where Delia stood, blue eyes hopeful. Behind her, a slightly battered photobooth sat, its sides clad in faded wood panelling, but its sign still proudly proclaiming ‘Four pictures! Three Minutes!’

‘I know the curtain’s shorter than ideal, but it’s very quiet back here. I’ve been, twice, to check. I stared at those trowels and dibbers for nearly half an hour and only one person came by the whole time, and I think he was just lost. What do you say?’

Patsy bit her lip in an attempt to hold the rush of gratitude in check. They had passed a much newer booth in the front of the shop, its outside clad in shiny pastel linoleum. This poor thing had clearly been ousted from its prime position and tucked away in the back of the shop. It looked rather neglected; certainly the gardening aisle of a city-centre Woolworth’s wouldn’t get much footfall. It was, therefore, as good as private. Delia had gone to Patsy-esque levels of caution, just so that they could take pictures together on Patsy’s birthday.

Delia meanwhile shifted uneasily from foot to foot, awaiting an answer. She was doubting her plan now that Patsy was here, immaculate hair and makeup framed by a slowly disintegrating display of hanging basket liners and garden twine. The booth looked far sadder than she had remembered. Perhaps this was a horrible idea.

'Pats? What do you think?'

‘I think my carriage awaits, don’t you?’ Smiled Patsy at last, slipping her coat and bag from her shoulders and placing them at the door of the booth. Delia grinned with relief and pulled the curtain back for Patsy to slide in, somehow managing to look more like she was getting into a chauffeured car than a battered Auto-Photo in Aldgate.

‘I’m sorry it’s a bit snug.’ Delia apologised as the redhead looked up at her from the narrow seat.

‘I think that’s rather the point.’ Replied Patsy with a coy smile, patting the remaining space next to her. Delia dropped her bag next to Patsy’s belongings before inserting a coin into the slot and slipping behind the faded curtain.

The proximity was intoxicating. Delia had to remind herself that the curtain only reached to their knees, to keep herself from pulling Patsy to her before the first flash went off. Instead she settled for resting her head on Patsy’s shoulder as the camera clicked and whirred.

‘So this is what other couples do.’ Murmured Patsy as they blinked the first starry flashes from their eyes.

‘Apparently. Though really I just wanted a photo of you that wasn’t your Nursing School graduation.’ Delia winked, as the booth readied itself again.

‘I know full well you kept that newspaper clipping of me with the cubs on Commonwealth day.’ Replied Patsy, casting Delia a look of mock annoyance as the camera went off again. ‘Oh! Oh no, that won’t be a very flattering one at all!’

‘But a very honest depiction, I think…’

The camera flashed again as Patsy opened her mouth to protest, before the booth stilled and began to process.

‘That wasn’t fair at all! I shall look like a pantomime mask in every shot!’ Patsy plucked a second coin from her skirt pocket. ‘Do another one?’

Delia grinned and leant out of the booth to drop the coin into the slot, and was pleased to feel two warm arms snake around her waist and pull her back in, guiding her to balance upon two nyloned knees.

‘I don’t know why I never thought of this.’ Said Patsy, looking up admiringly at the woman now perched on her lap as the booth reset itself for another four shots.

‘I did,’ replied Delia softly, ‘I’ve been thinking about it for a long while if I’m honest, but I wasn’t sure that you would be up for it.’

Patsy nodded understandingly before casting a glance at the thick curtain shielding them from the shop floor. The aisle outside was quiet.

‘This far from Poplar, Deels, in the back aisle of a Woolworths with you, I just about am.’

The camera flashed as Delia pressed a kiss into Patsy’s hair. They held eachother close for a second shot, before Delia slipped a square envelope from the inside of her coat.

‘In which case I’ve one more thing for you.’

Patsy looked from the envelope to a suddenly somewhat nervous-looking Delia before taking it. Patsy slid a finger beneath the seam and slid the card within it into the light. There, in neat cursive, above a red heart, arced familiar words. ‘To the entire contents of my heart – happy birthday’.

‘You made me a card...’ Whispered Patsy very quietly, tracing the heart (which looked suspiciously like it had been cut from the cover of one of Delia’s copybooks).

The welshwoman’s reply came just as quiet. ‘I said that I would. And I didn’t want to give it to you at the house, with the others.’

Patsy nodded, eyes shining. Holding the card to her chest, she wrapped an arm around Delia’s shoulders and pulled her in, their eyes closing just as the flash went to blind them once again. Some shy part of them both had them pull apart bashfully as the final shot was taken. But it was nothing the booth hadn’t seen before. Just two lovers, two sweethearts, the entire contents of each other’s hearts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm cheesy.
> 
> (I also spent an inordinate amount of time finding a verified 1960s branch of Woolworths in decent distance but not too near to Poplar. Fanfiction makes you do strange things...)


	20. Delia Busby Only Makes a Bit of a Fuss

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Patsy's birthday, part two. (Sorry it took so long!)

 

Victoria Park was cold and quiet as the two women strolled from the boating lake up towards the east lake, their long-coated reflections merging into one as Delia looped an arm through Patsy’s. Delia knew, from her hours pouring over anything London related in the Tenby library as a teen, that before the war it had been one of London’s more interesting parks. A palm house had stood at one end and a church and several ornamental structures had been scattered across its greens. Like much of London, such luxuries were repurposed or damaged during the war; they had passed the chained entrance of an air raid shelter on their way in, and the concrete squares where once anti-aircraft guns had been mounted were still visible, though bare and cracked now. Still, its lack of decoration meant that the park always seemed to be less busy than it’s more glamourous central London peers, especially on a chilly November afternoon, and for that Delia was grateful.

‘Enjoying your birthday?’ The brunette asked, leaning happily against Patsy’s thick-coated arm as they walked. Patsy smiled down at her, warmed by the contact and by the knowledge that the two strips of photographs lay nestled against her chest at that moment.

‘I am, its been perfectly lovely so far. Though I must admit I’m still a little apprehensive about what else you might have planned.’

Delia pulled a face, ‘Don’t you trust me? I’m very hurt.’

Pastsy pulled her own face, one with a dash of Nurse Mount warning about it. ‘I meant what I said Delia, I don’t want any fuss. You know I’m perfectly content simply taking a constitutional round a park with you.’

‘I know.’ The brunette squeezed her arm.

‘So no fancy dinners?’ Patsy persisted.

‘No fancy dinners.’ Delia replied sincerely.

‘Promise?’

Delia chuckled and shook her head.

‘Cross my heart!’

They neared the east lake, and found that it was even quieter here, their only companions being a few swans hovering optimistically round the edges, and two small boys and their mother pushing a small sailboat out onto the calm surface on the south side. The women turned silently and began to follow the lake’s edge on its curve northwards.

‘Who does that remind you of?’ Delia nodded towards a grey goose who was eyeing them with beady appraisal.

‘Stop it…’ the redhead scolded as the goose turned, its flat black feet slapping the waters edge with uncannily Nurse Crane-like authority as it padded away.

 The winter had truly settled in, most of the trees now displaying bare limbs, but for the occasional bough still valiantly waving a final leaf or two in salutation. The stillness of the park was blissful, the temperature rendering it undisturbed save for the occasional trill of a bus from the road that ran along the north of the park, and the distant chatter of the children.

‘Delia,’ Patsy ventured a while later, ‘I know I said I’m perfectly happy walking around a park with you…’

‘But maybe not in this weather!’ Delia finished, her teeth chattering. ‘Message understood, Pats, follow me!’

The November chill had lost its charm, and the pair sought out a bus going anywhere, just to warm themselves. A few stops later Delia suddenly reached for the bell, and they tumbled onto the frozen pavement outside the striking red brick of The V&A’s Bethnal Green museum.  Soon they sat, frozen hands thawing gratefully around teacups, under the vast, valted ceiling of the café. Delia had been drawn more by the promise of tea and perhaps even cakes, rather than the childhood exhibits, but Patsy looked around with interest from where they sat beneath the skylights.

‘Did you have anything like this growing up Deels?’ She asked with a lopsided smile, indicating the elaborate dolls houses lining the cases beyond the seating area.

‘I was more of a trees and sticks kind of child, to be honest.’ The Welshwoman replied, reaching for her half of a buttered teacake. She had tried to talk Patsy into a slice of bakewell or carrot by way of a birthday cake, but Patsy had delined in favour of a more modest fruited bun to split between them. (‘You’ve been living with nuns too long,’ Delia had teased.)

‘Why does that not surprise me.’ Smiled Patsy, Delia’s adventurous ways having gotten them both into and out of bother on several occasions.

Delia sipped her tea, hesitant to return the question about toys, aware that the whole of Patsy’s childhood had been tinged by years of internment. Tentatively she enquired, ‘Did you have dolls houses, Pats, when you were small?’

Patsy’s voice was calm, tucking a stray lock of red behind her ear. ‘Mm, I don’t think so. My sister and I were very into puppets though. They have wonderful shadow puppets in Hong Kong. I don’t remember many dolls.’

‘Dad used to make me sweet little rag dolls out of the scraps from the drapers shop, but I think he just gave up when I kept accidentally leaving them up trees.’ Patsy gave her a look that said ‘typical’. ‘What? I liked exploring. I still do. I like nothing more than exploring this city with you.’

The last comment came low and quiet, and Patsy dipped her head and stirred her coffee in deflection of what might have been a blush.

‘Well you can explore another one with me in the spring, Deels, if you pluck up the courage to ask your mother for the documents.’

‘I’ve asked her! She’ll be up in a fortnight to chastise me for not managing to get Christmas off, so I’ve asked her to bring my birth certificate then.’

‘Well good.’ Patsy winked.

‘I’ll remind you said that when you’re coming to lunch with her.’ Delia replied, checking her watch.

‘Sorry, what was that last bit?’ Patsy’s eyebrows were raised in questioning and perhaps mild fear.

‘It’s nearly five, we best get back to Poplar.’

‘Delia-‘

Delia was on her feet pulling Patsy’s coat from the back of her chair. She gallantly held it out ready for her, offering no reply regarding Mrs Busby.

‘Come along Pats, the day is not over yet!’

* * *

 

Patience Mount had not personified her namesake on the journey back, dropping the questioning regarding lunch with Delia’s mother only to recommence her warnings about _fuss_. Delia had remained infuriatingly unhelpful, commenting on everything from the weather to the window displays visible from the bus and offering no information on her plans whatsoever. Patsy was still pestering for information even as Delia ushered her back up the steps to Nonnatus House.

‘Are you going to ask to me to go and change? Because if this for a fancy dinner reservation I really will-‘

‘Patience.’ Delia came to a halt on the bottom step with two gloved hands on her hips.

‘…Yes?’ Patsy faltered on the flagstones at the sight of Delia’s warning glare.

‘Get in the house, please.’

Patsy exhaled and pursed her lips, before obediently following Delia through the front door and into the hallway. As soon as their coats had been hung on the stand Patsy felt a small hand steering her towards the sitting room. The house was quiet, two sets of heels ringing out on the hardwood floor, and so Patsy was surprised to find… well, _everyone_ , gathered in the living room.

Trixie, Barbara, Phyllis, the sisters, Chummy, Peter, baby Freddie alongside his namesake Fred, a beaming Violet and all four Turners. Patsy just caught a glimpse of them all, and a sweet set of paper bunting that read ‘Happy Birthday Patsy’ before suddenly everyone turned and raised what looks like bundles of rolled up newspaper into the air with a loud chorus of ‘Surprise!’

Patsy blinked around at them in bemusement, all smiling faces and strange bundles, before the unmistakable smell of salt and vinegar reached her nostrils.

‘A fish and chip supper?’ She beamed at Delia, ‘It’s not a fancy dinner at all…’

‘As if I would dare.’ Delia winked as the extended Nonnatus family burst out laughing and began to gather around her.

Chummy slipped a sturdy arm around Patsy’s shoulders and gave her a squeeze as she led her towards the dining room, whilst Timothy delivered two more steaming parcels to the newly arrived nurses. Shelagh began to organise the distribution of cutlery and condiments, as Sister Winnifred’s wimple weaved between them all as she delivered as huge teapot to the centre of the table. Amongst the bustle Patsy reached out a hand and for a moment found Delia’s, a message of thanks delivered through the briefest of contacts. As she broke away Delia returned a smile that Patsy felt a surge of gratitude to be have been able to capture on those two strips of pictures now nestled in her coat pocket.

‘Is everybody seated? Nurse Busby there’s a spot here for you next to Master Turner and myself.’ Came Phyllis’s authoritative call across the table, and Patsy looked about her to realise she had been placed at the head of the table, between Trixie and young Angela on her mother’s knee, who gazed up at the tall nurse in adoration.

Taking advantage of her distraction, Delia bent over redhead’s shoulder and tweaked the newpaper aside to steal a steaming chip from the parcel.

‘Excuse you, Nurse Busby!’

Delia gave Patsy a final wink and a whisper before hurrying to take the seat Phyllis had kept for her. Simple words, and yet they hummed pleasantly in Patsy’s ear like the ring of a tuning fork. Warm and simple words, made rich with love and the scent of vinegar. Words Patsy had not been happy to hear in a long, long time.

‘Happy birthday, Pats.’

And she was.

Happy.

 

 


	21. Nonnatus, Nicholas and News

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I meant to get this up before Christmas eve, it didn't happen. Happy boxing day, sort of?

Several winters ago the crumbling house of Nonnatus had found itself totally without power, after an advent punctuated with the wail of air raid sirens and the staccato rattle of anti-aircraft guns. Undeterred the sisters, their ranks made up of some different faces then, did what sisters always do; they came together, they lit candles, and they prayed. In the peaceful years since, the Nuns of Raymond Nonnatus had taken to holding their midnight mass in the same candlelight, the simplicity of their lives personified by the service needing nothing more than voice and candlewick (and a few hymn sheets for the less regular attendees).

Now as 1961 neared its end, a new community had gathered with friends and colleagues at this service full of anticipation. The Turners, the Noakes', nurses young and old, Sisters resident and visitor (the haughty profile of Sister Ursula glowed ominously nearby). The chapel was still but for the ever flickering shadows cast by the candlelight. They took the shape of the midnight worshippers, the starched wimples, the ladies hats, the men’s smoothly brylcremed heads. Chummy stooped to relight Sister Mary Cynthia’s candle as Sister Winfred’s pure voice rang out in a latinate blessing.

Patsy stood amongst the flickering beauty of it, wishing that she had followed Tom and Barbara to the large parish church for midnight mass, or that she stayed away altogether. But something had drawn her here. The low light and the increased number made the chapel the seem smaller, more intimate than it usually did when the nurses joined services here, and yet the figures of Chummy and Mary Cynthia seemed far, far away from where she stood. Maybe the dim lighting was affecting her perception of the distance, or maybe it was something else, the fact that certain words were rushing through this service towards her. Just words, and yet as each Christmas drew near the stirring of memories they brought could not be escaped. Patsy’s throat grew tight beneath her coat collar, as Sister Winifred’s psalm drew to an end in reverent vibrato.

She had hoped the smaller service would be easier, for there would be no walking home alone if the service was too solemn for her, and the intimacy of the chapel was unlikely to be jarringly joyful. Patsy was a difficult customer as far as Christmas services were concerned and she knew it, but now as she dipped her face into the shadow cast by Shelagh’s veil, she found herself longing for the anonymity of the busy parish mass. If only Delia were here, she could create a solemn peace with the briefest look, or lift a sombre moment with a flash of a dimple. But she was at the hospital, the only reason that she wasn’t in Wales, and wouldn’t be back until-

Patsy and the rest of the chapel raised their heads in attention as the clock in the hall struck rang out twelve metallic notes, each seeming to shimmer like heat haze in the stillness left by the pause in Sister Julienne’s reading. Her words began again as the clock fell quiet, and the dreaded phrase grew ever nearer. Patsy opened eyes she hadn’t realised were closed as the chair next to her scraped softly against the flagstone floor – Delia, starched collar cast orange in the candle-glow, slid quietly into the seat next Patsy’s, her face weary and watchful.

‘ _And so we remember_ -‘

Thank god she was here.

_‘the souls of those-‘_

God she wished they were.

 _‘who have departed before us_.’

There it was. There they were. And yet here she was, feeling the gentle reassurance of a warm shoulder pressing against her own in the gloom. Patsy permit a single tear to spill over, its heat burning satisfyingly as it traversed a powdered cheek. Patsy caught it with a single dab of a readied hankerchief. As the prayers around them ended, she chanced a single glance at Delia, whose nursing-capped head nodded once in silent affirmation. _All over._

Patsy returned it. _Yes, all over now._

* * *

 

Nurse Mount took up her post on call in the morning with a light heart. Dressed in starched blues, she had woken Delia with a kiss and two small gifts (a Bakelite bangle in periwinkle, and a book on maternity hygiene) and shortly after waved her trio off to morning service.

‘Knock for Nurse Crane if you get called out,’ Trixie had instructed as she arranged a white fur shrug across her shoulders. ‘The Sisters are ensconced in the chapel till after we get back at eleven, and Phyllis says one religious service in a twenty four hour period is more than sufficient for her.’

‘I can read a rota you know, Trix.’ The red head had winked before handing over the purse she had been dutifully holding. Trixie had floated down the front steps with Barbara and Delia hooked onto each gloved arm.

It had been gloriously peaceful for a while. Patsy had made up a cup of strong coffee and drank it next to the wireless, a service from one of the grander London churches warbling festively from its speakers. Sister Monica Joan had emerged from the chapel well before ten, making a signature beeline for the kitchen without a glance in the nurse’s direction, but Patsy was happy enough to while away the morning waiting for the others’ return. Soon they would set to work in the kitchen, all sorrows of last night to be scrubbed and peeled away with the mountains of vegetables to be prepared. As the eleventh hour drew near she heard the welcome rattle of keys in the door, followed almost immediately by the harsh trill of the telephone.

‘Nonnatus house?’ Patsy waved at the frozen nurses piling through the door and pointed at the telephone in her other hand.

‘Morning Nurse, we’ve got a Christmas delivery on Winch Street…’ Came a tired voice down the phone line.

‘Winch Street…. What’s the patient’s name, please?’ Patsy asked, lifting her head in a grateful smile as Delia trotted forward to open the log book. ‘Angela Stockton, perfect. I’ll be right with you.’

A well-practised unit, the nurses descended on Patsy to aid her in her preparations, Trixie holding Patsy’s coat and cap out to her whilst Barbara trotted off in her court shoes to retrieve her delivery bag from the clinic room.

‘Well that’s you all set in under a minute. I’ll just go and let Nurse Crane know she’s on duty.’ Trixie smiled, pulling a stray hair from Patsy’s collar before leaving the couple alone in the hallway. Delia ignored Patsy’s apologetic protests as she reached up to secure a woollen scarf around the taller woman’s neck.

‘Christmas day on your own Deels, I promised your mother you would have a lovely day away from home and-’

‘And I will, when you get home. Now go, you are needed.’ Delia gave the redhead a look surely inherited from her mother. Patsy shot a glance along the corridor before planting a kiss on the apple of Delia’s cheek.

‘I’ll be as quick as I can.’

‘I’m not sure you can rush these things!’ Delia laughed pulling open the door to the cold again, her dimples in full effect.

‘Have you even met me, Busby?’

* * *

 

Angela Stockton, it appeared, had not met Nurse Mount. Nor would she any time soon, for her eyes were squeezed so tightly shut, and her screams so loud that neither firm voice nor the practiced Nurse Mount demeanour were in any way apparent to her. Mr Stockton was pacing terrifiedly in the street outside as the familiar Nonnatus bike rounded the corner of Winch street, and there he seemed to be determined to remain for the duration of labour.

‘That’s lovely, Angela! Make the most of this contraction for me!’ Patsy yelled encouragingly (she hoped) over Mrs Stockton’s screams. Angela’s contraction screams eventually subsided to be replaced with the most impressively loud moans and groans that Patsy had ever witnessed in four years of midwifery. If this labour ever ended, she was quite sure she would be both deaf and without voice.

As the fourth hour of labour dawned Patsy found herself dreaming almost deliriously of the dinner no doubt being served any moment at the dining table at Nonnatus. ‘Put a plate under the grill for Nurse Mount,’ someone would say. Would they remember to put some sprouts aside for her? Oh how she loved sprouts, underrated little things though they were… She was brought out of her distractions by a sharp crushing sensation in her left hand.

‘It’s stopped working, Nurse!’ Angela wailed, flapping the mask of the gas and air in exhausted desperation. ‘It’s not even touching the PAIIIIINNN – OOOHH!’

Patsy guided her through another contraction until the woman’s grip eased a little. ‘I think we’ve used up this canister of gas, old thing. I’m going to have to get your husband to call for more, alright? I’m just going to go to the window, hold on there for me.’

Patsy eased her aching legs from their folded position and crossed quickly to the window, pushing it open and her torso out of it into the cold. Mr Stockton looked up, his face a pantomime of fear as the tall nurse half dangled out of his bedroom window. ‘Nurse?!’

‘I need you to make a telephone call for me, Mr Stockton. Baby is taking his time, I need gas and air, and Nurse Crane. Quick as you like, please.’ Behind her, Angela screams began again like the first wails of an air raid siren.

The man nodded vigorously and took off at a run up the street, a cigarette flying from his mouth as he ran. Patsy almost felt her eardrums wince in anticipation of the next contraction, and for a moment wished she could go with him.

* * *

 

Though she would have to hide the fact from her mother, Delia Busby really had been having a rather lovely Christmas day. Barbara and Trixie had disappeared upstairs to change by the time she had seen Patsy off, and so Delia had slipped off her shoes and settled down on the settee with the wireless on, a bag of a dates balanced on one knee. She had only intended to sit here until the others returned to begin cooking, but the chance of such peace was so rare during a Busby Christmas that she took it gratefully.

The rustling of the paper bag seemed to draw Sister Monica Joan all the way from chapel, the elderly nun had appeared in the doorway, and Delia had frozen, a date stored comically in one cheek and suddenly very aware of her socked feet propped up on the sofa arm. But Monica Joan had disappeared for a moment and then returned, with a tin in hand and a conspiratorial smile. With a weathered hand she closed the door behind her before popping open the lid to reveal her treasure. Mince pies. Soon all notion of chores or dinner preparation were quite forgotten, and the oldest and most recent recruits to midwifery passed the best part of the day trading their treats and listening to a Glen Miller special, two sets of stocking toes wiggling in the warmth of the heater.

Outside the December darkness fell, and after seven hours of labour, Nurses Crane and Mount staggered in from the December chill to find Sister Monica Joan and Delia napping in front of the wireless. The former with a party hat balanced atop her wimple and the latter with a hand still in a crinkled paper bag. The chatter of familiar voices filtered in from the dining room.

‘Well, I’m glad to see we weren’t the only ones working hard today.’ Phyllis mumbled as she took Patsy's delivery bag from her. ‘I’ll see to these, Nurse Mount. Go and warm yourself up.’

At Phyllis’s gruff tones Delia stirred, blinking as Patsy’s tall frame came into focus in the doorway. Patsy raised a finger to her lips as the Welshwoman blearily groped for words, and nodded towards the sleeping nun with a smile. Exhausted, she unpinned her cap from her head and headed towards the stairs. Delia stretched and brushed tell-tale crumbs from her skirt before easing gently off the sofa to follow her.

‘Ah Patsy! Boy or girl?’ Mary Cynthia emerged from the dining room carrying the remnants of what looked like Christmas pudding.

‘A boy. Healthy and happy.’ Patsy returned with a weary smile.

‘Noel?’

‘Nicholas.’

‘My second guess.’ Smiled the little nun. ‘We’ve kept a plate back for you and Nurse Crane, it’s just under the warmer, do come and eat when you are ready.’

‘Pats?’ Delia called softly as she crossed the upstairs landing. She pushed open Trixie and Patsy’s door to find a slightly startled Patsy, the white sheen of her girdle stark in the lamplight and a green dress held up to protect her modesty. ‘Oh! Sorry pats I didn’t realise –’ Delia turned away to give her some privacy.

‘Don’t be silly,’ said patsy softly. ‘Come in and shut the door. It’s awfully drafty up here.’

Delia pressed the door gently shut, aware of a flushed heat rising in her cheeks. The welshwoman focused intently on running her finger across the chipped dado rail as Patsy stepped into her dress behind her.

‘Will you zip me up?’ asked Patsy after a moment. Delia summoned up the courage to oblige, running her palms up Patsy's arms afterwards.

‘Gosh, you’re frozen Pats!’ She exclaimed, wrapping her arms around the taller woman.

‘I’ll be alright.’ Patsy shifted in her embrace to reach for her uniform cardigan, still warm from removing it a minute ago. She slipped it back on and feels the goosebumps subside, grateful despite the green and maroon combination.

‘You look very festive.’ Smiled Delia, as Patsy draped two long arms about her shoulders.

‘Well you can enjoy it from a distance as usual, as I give it exactly two minutes before I’m summoned downstairs for this Christmas dinner. Oh, Christmas dinner! I’m not even sorry to release you, I’ve been dreaming of these sprouts all day…’

‘Well thanks very much!’ Laughed Delia, but the laugh faded just a little too quickly.

‘What’s wrong?’ Asked Patsy, pulling back, her eyes darkening with concern.

‘We had some news when you were out.’

‘That sounds ominous…’ Patsy murmured, scanning the shorter woman’s face for clues as to what was troubling her. The words came all at once, tumbling from previously smiling lips.

‘Sister Julienne had a phone call after dinner, about this mission hospital you’re all twinned with? And she looked terribly serious about it and – well we don’t know the all the details yet but – oh Pats I can’t be away from you like this, I-’

Patsy’s look of concerned confusion turned to one of fear as something on the landing creaked. She pushed Delia roughly away as the door opened and the Welshwoman staggered back as Trixie appeared to strike a dramatic pose in the doorway.

‘Patsy!’ She exclaimed, ‘Thank God you’re home, you’ll never guess what’s happened! We’re going to South Africa!’

Trixie bundled the redhead into a excited hug and over her shoulder, Patsy watched Delia’s eyes fill with tears.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I may have tweaked the delivery of the news to my own advantage.... Such is the prerogative of the fanfic writer.
> 
> Also, the words from mass are not verbatim from the order of service as I felt a bit weird quoting it! But you get the gist.
> 
> its 3am sorry if this is poop!
> 
> EDIT: SO MANY typos, sorry!


End file.
